The Coordinated Humanitarian Response, Health and Displacement action-research project aims to implement an international master's degree, including European and African universities - HumanResponse Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree. The programme aims to provide a unique multidisciplinary programme in teaching and research about life-saving assistance and displacement in volatile contexts. The Erasmus Mundus project provides 60 scholarships for students, teacher mobility and lectures by Visiting Scholars from various countries.  In addition, it contributes to research with articles on innovative topics. The programme is jointly developed by Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Makerere University (MU), University of Cape Verde (UniCV), University of Santiago (US), University of Athens (UAthens) and University of Rovuma (URovuma). The first semester is spent in Lisbon, Portugal, the second semester in Trondheim, Norway, and the third semester in Kampala, Uganda, before the students move to one of the seven partner institutions to work on their master’s thesis. In the fourth-semester students may collect dissertation data in humanitarian contexts with 23 institutions (associated partners) in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America or Asia. The curriculum is taught by both academics and practitioners, emphasizing problem-based learning and knowledge application opportunities in summer schools and internships.   HumanResponse tackles both research and teaching to address the pressing need for professionalisation of humanitarian workers through: fostering South-North collaboration and multi-stakeholder cooperation, strengthening localized leadership, and articulating theory and practice to navigate organizational complexity in humanitarian action.

Global-MINDS integrates insights from Social & Cultural Psychology, offering high quality international teaching in English on issues of migration, diversity and inclusion, also identified as Sustainable Development Goals by the UN. The programme objectives are to equip students with the psychological knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and highest standard of research expertise to engage with complex social problems worldwide. Theory and practice are bridged via the master thesis and internship.  The fully accredited joint programme combines the Social & Cultural Psychology branches of four national Master programmes, integrating the expertise of all partners while offering diversity via three mobility paths of which one is a new path focusing on migrant health. Students complete a 2-year study programme with 120 ECTS, beginning semester 1 at either Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon (Portugal) or SWPS (Warsaw, Poland), moving then to either the University of Limerick (Ireland) or the University of Oslo (Norway) in Semester 2 and attending a joint summer school. Year 2 consists of a dissertation project and the internship in an NGO, organization, or intergovernmental agency.   A total of 100 scholarships are available of which 40 are full scholarships and 60 are tuition fee waivers. The worldwide network of 30 (non)academic Associate Partners, and numerous other partnerships, facilitates students' international master thesis research and provides internship opportunities.  

The research project "Processes of inclusion of women victims of domestic violence: education, vocational training and entrepreneurship" analyzes the process of social and economic autonomy of women who leave violent relationships and enter into a shelter. With three axes of analysis - policies, institutions and individuals (women victims) - the overall objectives of the project are developed at macro, meso and micro level. The project aims to: 1. Assess the importance of political strategies in education, employment and training, social inclusion and equality in the process of social reintegration of victims of domestic violence and the prevention of their revictimization; 2. Map and examine the policies for the social reintegration of the victims and the role of the support institutions, namely shelters; 3. Understand the process of social reintegration of victims of domestic violence who have been hosted in a shelter; to longitudinally analyze the inequality of resources throughout the life course of the woman and the strategies to promote their autonomy and a life project.

  The action-research project in social work with families and children aims to implement an international master's degree, including European and African universities - MFAMILY Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree. The programme enhances the knowledge and the skills needed for working internationally with interventions for vulnerable children and marginalized families. The Erasmus Mundus project provides 139 scholarships for students, teacher mobility and lectures by Visiting Scholars from various countries.  In addition, it contributes to research with articles on innovative topics. The programme is jointly developed by Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon, University of Gothenburg (UGOT), University of Stavanger (UiS) and Makerere University (MU). The first semester is spent in Lisbon, Portugal, the second semester in Stavanger, Norway and the third semester in Gothenburg, Sweden before the students move to one of the four partner institutions to work on the master’s thesis. The language of instruction is English. The aim of the programme is for students to graduate having a sound practical foundation in: understanding the diverse and varied contexts, life situations and challenges faced by children and families in Europe and selected international settings; applying skills to work appropriately in and with these contexts; using and developing research to inform knowledge and practice for working with vulnerable children and families; and applying the values of international social work.    

This project aims to examine the role of civil society in supporting vulnerable members of the community within the context of social welfare reform, neoliberal policy and new public management initiatives. Pressures of marketization, austerity and statutory intervention are challenging policies to reducing poverty, social inequality and social exclusion and promoting social cohesion and developing social capital. The project involves EU and associated countries that are undergoing significant social and economic change, namely England, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, whilst non EU countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are newly advanced economic development countries. The project will enhance the understanding and knowledge based models of global sustainable social welfare service delivery.

Using a gender perspective, the aim of this quantitative and qualitative research project is to examine entrepreneurship patterns and dynamics in Portugal, how these patterns and dynamics affect daily functioning of PT SME,and how they affect life course of individual entrepreneurs, especially women.It is crucial for the project to examine the gendered nature of entrepreneurship in Portugal, something which will be connected to a broader, integrated analysis of main determinants explaining the identified patterns of entrepreneurship.This framework needs to be addressed if a deeper understanding of social and cultural determinants of women and men’s entrepreneurship behaviour is to be achieved.A number of articulated methodological strategies will be used in this research.As we wish to achieve an in-depth, understanding of the determinants of entrepreneurship it is necessary to use a multi-level approach.

This projects aims at identifying and analysing typical trajectories of success, failure and dropping-out among higher education students, relating them to structural and institutional parameters, and looking for explanatory factors and best practices. The scope of the project is nationwide and it spreads through the various Portuguese higher education subsystems. The analysis is carried out at three levels: structural, institutional and biographical, using statistical sources, surveys, institutional documents and in-depth interviews. The project is included in the programme “The Promotion of Educational Success and the Fight against Dropping-Out and Failure in Higher Education” of MCTES (Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education) and is supported by FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology). The research team is formed on the basis of a consortium between CIES-ISCTE and ISFLUP, and has also the cooperation of other higher education institutions and students’ unions.

The project aims at producing a first set of assessment items of the PNL (National Reading Plan), regarding its implementation, the attitudes towards reading of different public sectors, and the PNL impacts in fostering reading and literacy. The final goal is to design a proposal for an Evaluation System of the National Reading Plan. A mixed method approach is used, combining documentary analyses, surveys, interviews and case studies.

Quality is a innovative quantitative and qualitative research project that aims to examine how, in an era of major change, European citizens and workers living in different national welfare state regimes and subject to different public and organization trends and policies evaluate the quality of their lives. The project will analyse international-comparative data on the social well-being of citizens and collect new data on social quality in European workplaces in the selected partner countries: UK, Finland, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hungary and a candidate country for EU enlargement, Bulgaria.

The project wish to contribute to the achievement of full equality between men and women in Europe, promoting changes in gender roles also by way of a better conciliation betwen family and profissional life. The stable presence of women in the labour market is an irreversible fact; therefore, in Europe men and woman have to face the problem of a conciliation of responsabilities in family and work, as well as the necessity to involve men in family life in a wider way.