The UMinho Sports Merit Awards 2021/21 ceremony took place on December 20, in the medieval hall of the Rectory building, in Largo do Paço, Braga. The initiative distinguished 56 student-athletes, 28 of them from the School of Engineering, with results of excellence, linked to six sports, in particular volleyball (26) and handball (21).

The session included interventions from the pro-rector of UMinho for Institutional Assessment and Special Projects, Guilherme Pereira, the administrator of the Social Services of UMinho (SASUM), António Paisana, the president of the Academic Association (AAUM), Rui Oliveira, the administrator of the Portuguese University Sports Federation (FADU), Rui Freire, and the futsal coach of SC Braga/AAUM, Joel Rocha, who also gave the lecture “The Dual Career in High Performance”.

The university national champions (individually or collectively) and, simultaneously, with academic success (according to the Scholarship Regulation) received the scholarship and the respective certificates, which attested to their excellence in sports and academics.

These students, 30 men and 26 women, came from 32 courses at UMinho, especially from the School of Engineering (28) and the School of Economics and Management (11). The women’s and men’s volleyball teams were champions in the final phases of the National University Championships (CNU’s), which took place between July 19th and 30th in Covilhã and Fundão. The AAUM men’s and women’s handball teams also won the gold medal.

The Sports Merit Prizes marked their 12th edition in 2021, with a total of 887 prizes being awarded, with an investment of more than 200 thousand euros.