In a solemn academic act, presided over by the rector Pilar Aranda Ramírez (download speech), which took place at the Crucero Bajo of the Royal Hospital on Friday 3 June at 11.30 am, the University of Granada named Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos as a new "Doctor Honoris Causa".

The honoris causa distinction now awarded to this academic joins those already conferred by McGill University (Canada), University of Brasilia, Federal University of Mato Grosso, Federal University of Sergipe, Federal University of Ouro Preto, La Salle University, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Federal University/Catholic University of Pelotas, State University of Maranhão, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco/Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (Brazil), Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Universidad de Córdoba and Universidad de La Plata (Argentina), Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico), Universidad da Coruña (Spain), Universidad de Roskilde (Denmark) and Universidad de Costa Rica (Costa Rica), Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Peru) and Universidad Paris 8 (France).

Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is Director Emeritus of the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra. He earned an LL.M and J.S.D. from Yale University and holds the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa, by McGill University. His most recent project - ALICE: Leading Europe to a New Way of Sharing the World Experiences - was funded by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (ERC), one of the most prestigious and highly competitive international financial institutes for scientific excellence in Europe (http://alice.ces.uc.pt/en/). He has written and published widely on the issues of globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, social movements and the World Social Forum in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French, German, Chinese, Danish, Romanian and Polish.

He is Emeritus Director of the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra (CES-UC) and scientific coordinator of the Permanent Observatory of Justice (OPJ).