SYMPOSIA
The content of the works supported by the Grants program for Scientific Research and the interest shown by the scientific community led the BIAL Foundation to hold the “Behind and Beyond the Brain” Symposia, an event that, every two years since 1996, has been bringing together the most relevant names in the fields of neuroscience and of parapsychology and the various researchers supported by the Foundation.
“In this way, the BIAL Foundation hopes to contribute to (…) Humankind clarifying itself as a spiritual being and as a physical being, of great sensitivity and of great capacity for reasoning and achievement, freeing itself from crippling dependencies on third parties and on numbing mystical practices”, stated Luís Portela, in the opening speech of the 1st Symposium.
“It’s a time of celebration. We are celebrating decades of vision (...) in recognition, in anticipation capacity, in projection into the future. Understanding all of these decades ago had a huge merit. And realising this with the creation of the BIAL Foundation in 1994 has added merit, because it means institutionalising, not being dependent on one person, however exceptional he may be, and exceptional he is. Above all, it is to have vision (...). We are here at a time of celebration, consensually celebrating what is a triumph for health in Portugal”.
Prof. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
President of the Portuguese Republic
at the ceremony of the Prémio BIAL de Medicina Clínica 2018
Some of the names that have helped to consolidate the importance of this event:
Etzel Cardeña (Lund)
Bernard Carr (London)
Miguel Castelo-Branco (Coimbra)
Rui Costa (Seattle)
Axel Cleeremans (Bruxelas)
António Damásio (Los Angeles)
Larry Dossey (Dallas)
Hoyt Edge (Flórida)
Peter Fenwick (Londres)
Eberhard Fetz (Washington)
Fernando Gil (Sorbonne)
Allan Hobson (Harvard)
Jerome Kagan (Harvard)
Irving Kirsch (Boston)
Stephen Kosslyn (São Francisco)
Stephen Laberge (Stanford)
Dietrich Lehmann (Zurique)
Fernando Lopes da Silva
(Amesterdão e Lisboa)
Edwin May (Palo Alto)
Robert Morris (Edimburgo)
Dean Radin (Petaluma)
Anil Seth (Sussex)
Alcino Silva (Los Angeles)
Ian Stevenson (Virgínia)
Robert Stickgold (Harvard)
In 2024, from April 3-6, the 14th Symposium took place at Casa do Médico in Porto with “Creativity” as the central theme.
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