1 — There are moments when a community must pause to understand not only where it comes from, but, above all, where it wishes to go. Over recent decades, the Azores have undergone a profound transformation. Cities and towns have changed, transport links have improved, and the islands have drawn closer together. Educational attainment has risen, new sectors of the economy have emerged, and access has widened to services that earlier generations could scarcely have imagined.
2 — Autonomy, won through democracy and built through the labour of successive generations, was decisive in that journey. Yet no historical achievement, in itself, guarantees the future.
3 — Development is not a destination. It is a process of continual construction. Perhaps one of the greatest dangers a society can face lies in the conviction that what it has already achieved will suffice to meet the challenges yet to come.
4 — The Azores now face problems different from those that marked the decades following the establishment of autonomy. Some of today’s difficulties are new. Others are old, but have assumed dimensions that demand different responses.
5 — Demography is probably among the most pressing. A region that loses its young people, whose population ages, and that struggles to retain qualified people quietly places its own future in jeopardy. No public policy can afford to disregard such realities for long.
6 — We must create conditions that allow young people to study in the Azores, but also to build their lives here. To find employment suited to their qualifications. To secure housing at prices they can afford. To start a family. To develop business ventures. To participate in the cultural, scientific, and civic life of their homeland.
7 — When a young Azorean leaves to study on the mainland or abroad, that departure need not be regarded as a loss. Discovering other universities and other societies, with different ways of working, can enrich those who seek beyond their birthplace what they need to grow.
8 — The problem begins when returning to one’s roots ceases to be a viable choice. The University of the Azores therefore continues to fulfil a role that reaches far beyond higher education. It must generate more knowledge, demonstrating the Azores’ capacity to produce scholarship, train skilled professionals, investigate their own territory, and find answers to problems that, because of our island condition, others are unlikely to study with the same depth.
9 — The sea, the climate, volcanoes, biodiversity, agriculture, energy, the health of island populations, and mobility itself are all fields in which the Azores can and should produce knowledge. For too long, we have grown accustomed to viewing our remoteness as an inevitable disadvantage.
10 — The time has come to understand, too, the opportunities our location holds. We stand in the heart of the North Atlantic, within a space of immense scientific, environmental, economic, and geostrategic importance.
11 — We possess exceptional conditions for ocean research, atmospheric observation, the development of renewable energy, climate studies, and the understanding of marine biodiversity.
12 — All these are opportunities. Yet no opportunity becomes development of its own accord. Knowledge, investment, planning, and, above all, continuity are essential.
13 — One of the problems we encounter all too often in Portugal’s public administration, both nationally and regionally, is the ease with which projects change as political cycles turn. Electoral laws must therefore be reviewed so that elections may become the “bulwark” of necessary change, guided by knowledge and, above all, by vision. They must help prevent society from being governed by those who lack the requisite knowledge and preparation, and ensure that citizens play a meaningful part in shaping the future.
14 — The development of a region and a country cannot begin tending to itself anew every four years. People are fundamental, even when their views differ. Some matters demand horizons of ten, twenty, or thirty years. Demography and housing are among them.
Américo Natalino Viveiros, director