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| Founded | 1924; 101 years ago (1924) |
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| Founder | Government of Portugal |
| Type | Cultural institution |
| Headquarters | Seixas Palace Marquis of Pombal Square Lisbon,Portugal |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Product | Portuguesecultural education |
Key people | President Luís Faro Ramos Vice-President Gonçalo Teles Gomes |
| Website | Instituto Camões |
TheInstituto Camões (English:Camões Institute), formally,Camões — Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, I. P. (English:Camões — Institute for Cooperation and Language, Public Institute), is aPortuguese international institution dedicated to the worldwide promotion of thePortuguese language,Portuguese culture, andinternational aid, on behalf of theGovernment of Portugal. Headquartered inLisbon with centers across five continents, the mission of the Instituto Camões is the promotion of Portugal's language, culture, values, charity, and economy. The institution is named forPortuguese Renaissance authorLuís Vaz de Camões, considered the greatest poet of thePortuguese language and thenational poet ofPortugal.
Originating in the early 20th century as thePortuguese Institute for High Culture, the institution restructured with a greater linguistic focus in 1980, and absorbed thePortuguese Institute for Development Support, Portugal'sdevelopment aid agency, in 2012. The Instituto Camões exercises institutional autonomy, under the supervision of thePortuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the role of co-ordination and execution of external cultural policies of thePortuguese Government.
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The Instituto Camões was named in honour ofLuís de Camões, a poet of thePortuguese Renaissance and author ofOs Lusíadas, considered to be thenational epic of Portugal and the Portuguese language. The Instituto Camões head office is headquartered at Seixas Palace, a 19th-century mansion onMarquis of Pombal Square, inLisbon,Portugal.
The institution has its roots in theJunta da Educação Nacional, founded in 1924 to grant scholarships, funds, and grants to foreign universities and institutions that promoted Portugueselanguage education.
In 1936, the institution's role was expanded to include the promotion ofPortuguese culture andarts, as the Institute for High Culture (Instituto para a Alta Cultura). The institution was briefly named the Institute of Portuguese Culture (Instituto de Cultura Portuguesa), from 1976 to 1980.
In 1980, the institution's mission was refocused on language and renamed the Institute of Portuguese Culture and Language (Instituto de Cultura e Língua Portuguesa). The institution took its current name, after thePortuguese Renaissance author Luís Vaz de Camões, in 1992.
In 2005, the Instituto Camões received thePrince of Asturias Award for outstanding achievements in communications and the humanities, alongside the UK'sBritish Council, Germany'sGoethe-Institut, France'sAlliance française, Spain'sInstituto Cervantes, and Italy'sSocietà Dante Alighieri.
In 2012, the Instituto Camões absorbed thePortuguese Institute for Development Support, thedevelopment aid agency of theGovernment of Portugal. Since then, Instituto Camões operates with a wider mission of promoting Portuguese language, culture, and aid across the world.
The Institute's Portuguese Language Centres (Centros de Língua Portuguesa or CLP) aim to promote the Portuguese language as well as co-operation with different countries in the field of education, including those where Portuguese is already spoken. This is in contrast toSpain'sInstituto Cervantes, which is only represented in non-Spanish-speaking countries.
New centres are presently being established inParis and in the headquarters of theAfrican Union inAddis Ababa and of theEconomic Community of West African States inAbuja and in 2005, the towns ofCanchungo, Ongoré,Mansôa,Bafatá,Gabú,Buba,Catió,Bolama,Bubaque, andQuinhamel in Guinea-Bissau to spread the fluency of Portuguese as theofficial language in the country.
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The Institute's Portuguese cultural centres (Centros culturais portugueses) are centres whose aim is the promotion of cultural relations between Portugal and other countries, including those with which Portugal has strong historical and cultural ties, and where Portuguese is already widely spoken. Like in language centres' counterparts, this is in contrast toSpain'sInstituto Cervantes, which is only represented in non-Spanish-speaking countries.
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(in Portuguese)
