The Portuguese researcher José Colen has joined in the 2018-2019 academic year the project 'Religion and Civil Society' of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra. He holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the Catholic University of Portugal (IEP) and will work on issues of contemporary political theory, from the Cold War to the present day, in a project graduate 'Facts and Values'.

Colen has been researcher of the Center for Ethics, Politics and Society (CEPS) at the University of Minho (Portugal) and a member of the Foundation for Science and Technology in his native country. He has researched public elections, democratic theories, natural law, human rights, and the history of moral and political Philosophy .

researcher in Chicago, Princeton, Lisbon, and Minho

Montserrat Herrero, principal investigator of 'Religion and Civil Society', underlines that Colen "will be a great reinforcement in one of the areas of research of project dedicated to think the future of political communities in open and decentralized societies supported by shared values that reinforce freedom and concord and make religious freedom possible".

In addition, it indicates that the researcher will expand the team's international relations network thanks to its previous work at the Universities of Chicago, Princeton, Lisbon and Minho.

For his part, José Colen points out that he was familiar with group because before and just after his stay at Princeton University (USA) he spent a few months at the University of Navarra, completing a research on Karl Popper. "I was impressed by the cordial atmosphere at project, the bibliographic resources, the conditions at work and the general friendliness and professionalism of group. The decision to join was a natural one," he says.