Dear Colleagues,

we are very sorry to inform you about the passing of our dear colleague and friend António Almodovar.
We have prepared a small text appreciating his contribution to our field.
We would be grateful if you could circulate it among members of the list.

Many thanks,

Pedro Teixeira and José Luís Cardoso

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António Almodovar (1953-2016)



It is with great sadness that we share the news that our dear colleague and friend António Almodovar has passed away on the 22nnd December. His strength, wit, and perseverance were not sufficient to overcome the serious illness that weakened him over the last months.

We have lost a dear friend and his ever-stimulating presence at academic meetings and conferences. Nonetheless, we will always have with us his contribution as teacher and researcher in economic and social history, political science, business ethics and, first and foremost, in the history of economic thought.

He has made a great contribution to the historical analysis of the process of institutionalization of Political Economy in the XIXth Century (through various channels such as teaching and textbooks, associations, and parliamentary debates), about the relations between Law and Economics, about the history of social economics and its linkages with Christian economic and social doctrine, or about the economics and politics of corporatism. These will remain as great examples of rigorous and innovative research and will continue to inspire those willing to pursue those themes in Portugal and in the European context.

António Almodovar has participated in the founding meetings of the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought and was an active member of its Editorial Board. He took part in the governing bodies of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought as a member of its Council and of its Executive Committee and was the leading organizer of the annual conference that took place in Porto in 2006. He was also one of the leading promoters of the Iberian Meetings in HET, coordinating the meeting of 2001, and contributed decisively to the consolidation of a community of historians of economic thought in Portugal and Spain.

At the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto he had a major institutional relevance, not the least as the Dean of the Scientific Council and the Dean of the Pedagogical Council for many years. He was also, until his untimely death, Director of the Faculty’s Research Centre on Economics and Finance. At FEP-UP he left a major legacy in many generations of students, at the undergraduate and graduate levels, that he motivated to the relevance of history and social sciences in the training of economics and business students. In the PhD Program in Economics, he has battled for and succeeded in the inclusion and preservation of a mandatory course on HET, something that he coordinated until today and that is quite unique in the current landscape of doctoral training in economics.

He was a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon and member of various scientific organizations in the field of HET.

Above all, António Almodovar has earned the respect and friendship of all those that met him and that shared his company, and that were touched by the strength of his character, his wit, his peculiar sense of humour and his exceptional qualities as a human being.



Pedro Nuno Teixeira
Vice Rector - Academic Affairs - U. Porto, Portugal
Director - CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies
Associate Professor - Faculty of Economics - U. Porto