We describe the pioneering attempts made by Ruy Luís Gomes (1905–1984) and other Portuguese physicists to develop a research and teaching seminar in theoretical physics at the University of Oporto in 1942–1944 under the leadership first of the refugee Austrian theoretical physicist Guido Beck (1903–1988) and then of the Romanian-French theoretical physicist Alexandre Proca (1896–1955). These efforts failed, however, owing to lack of sustained financial support from the Portuguese government and to the political repression of the Salazar regime, which dismissed Gomes and other prominent Portuguese physicists and other scientists from their university positions.