PIONEER is an Alliance of European Universities dedicated to SDG 11 'Sustainable Cities and Communities', addressing the need for cities to become inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The alliance brings together 10 impact-driven universities, including an associated Swiss partner, and covers 32 cities and 16 regions across Europe. By bringing together academics, public institutions, private organisations and citizens in our orchestration framework, we will develop joint challenge-based education, impact-driven research and innovation co-creation initiatives that contribute to many European, regional and urban agendas, such as the EU Green Deal and the 'Fit for 55' package. To this end, PIONEER will also be a facilitator of inter-institutional learning and a tool for institutional change. We will achieve this ambition through strategic integration at the institutional level: gradually aligning our individual strategies and institutional trajectories, building a common development strategy to become truly international institutions integrated in a federal framework.This framework will be inspired by the European Union, with a strong strategic centre that draws on and supports the diversity and autonomy of our partners to build a flexible and complementary academic ecosystem, while working together on a common strategy and development path. Committed to spreading European values and promoting inclusion and diversity, the PIONEER Open Campus will offer seamless mobility for students and unique leadership development opportunities for staff. Our Knowledge Hub will enable member universities and over 40 associated partners from regional ecosystems to work together on matters concerning SDG11.

Statistical information also shows that both in Portugal and on average in EU countries, the risk of poverty or social exclusion is higher in the socialgroup of people with disabilities, with greater intensity in households made up of women. According to Portugal et al.,2010:14: "People with disabilities are among the poorest of the poor in various societies, constituting(...)what is commonly known as the inner third world, that is, the world made up of socially excluded and economically unprotected population groups, even in developed countries."Given that the intensity of the social phenomenon described remains unmitigated, the main international and European bodies, such as the UN and the European Commission, have insistently urged countries, through various reference documents, to design statistical and social indicator tools that make it possible to assess and monitor the living conditions of people with disabilities, as well as the impact of public policies on the daily lives of these citizens. Although Portugal has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Articles 30º and 32º of which recommend that countries design and implement a system for observing public policies that have an impact on this area and how they affect the living conditionsof people with disabilities, this recommendation has not been implemented to this date. In addition to being scarce, the existing statistical information in this regard is dispersed across sectors and is not harmonized from a conceptual point of view, which makes it difficult to read. The project therefore aims to fill this gap, which is widely accepted as essential. The general aim of this pilot project is the collaborative design and operationalization of an "Observation System for Inclusion Policies in Portugal", through the design of a broad, cross-cutting set of social indicators, covering some of the main sectoral areas with an impact on the living conditions of people with disabilities an...

WED PT – Elites in Portugal is a research project inscribed in the World Elite Database (https://worldelitedatabase.org/), which is a cooperative data and analysis project led by researchers on elite populations across the world. We are an international consortium of scholars from Argentina, Chile, China, Denmark, Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the USA, but with the purpose of expanding to more countries worldwide. We work together to develop a new standardized data regime to study and share data about elites. Our aim is to solve the problem of comparability and heterogeneity in the study of national power structures, and to foster a cooperative community of scholars interested in studying elite populations systematically. Having in mind this international approach, “WED PT – Elites in Portugal” also has the objective of deepening the study of elites in Portugal, and for that will mobilize the theoretical and methodological instruments for historical and contemporary challenges that the study of elites entails for better understanding inequalities, class, values, democracy, economic growth, development, and social well-being.

The Master's Degree in Managing Digital Transformation in the Health Sector (ManagiDiTH) is an innovative initiative in the European educational panorama, the result of a project financed by the European Union and led by the School of Applied Digital Technologies (Iscte-Sintra), in collaboration with two other universities: the Laurea - University of Applied Sciences, in Finland, and the AUTH - Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in Greece. This Master's degree aims to train future professionals, both in the technological and healthcare areas, with essential skills to face the challenges and opportunities that the digital era brings to the healthcare sector. Given the rapid acceleration of technological development, there is an urgent need to equip professionals with the necessary tools to navigate this constantly evolving scenario. With a multidisciplinary and innovative curriculum, the ManagiDiTH master's degree integrates three fundamental components: societal, digital and health. Furthermore, students can choose between two areas of specialization: Data Science or Interoperability. This flexibility allows each student to personalize their training according to their interests and professional aspirations. Thus, students have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge in areas such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, automation, cybersecurity and other emerging technologies that are redefining the way healthcare services are provided and managed. The study program, consisting of three semesters with a total of 90 ECTS, provides a solid theoretical basis combined with practical experiences and real projects in the sector. Teaching is taught in English, following the most recent pedagogical guidelines related to Distance Learning, which allows the participation of students of different origins and nationalities. The highly specialized teaching staff, coming from diverse academic and professional backgrounds, constitutes an added value of this master's ...

The InCITIES project aims to achieve the transformations of HEIs and their surrounding ecosystem centred around on cities’ needs of inclusion, sustainability and resilience. Its specific focus on widening countries (Portugal and Slovakia) will allow to overcome structural, sociocultural, economic, political and institutional barriers to transformation fostering. Addressing the European-global challenges of cities, InCITIES has 4 objectives: 1) Map institutional transformation strategies towards research-based sustainable universities including open science and career opportunities. 2) Build a long-term network of participating HEIs and surrounding ecosystems based on integrated knowledge HUBs. 3) Increase scientific, technological and staff capacity by sharing the best pedagogical, research, management and administrative practices in the consortium, and piloting leverages to widening HEIs. 4) Promote digitally driven universities by creating an open and innovative education and training platform in synergy with the project research and innovation agenda on inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities. The 5 methods jointly developed will set the foundation for the consortium role model: 1) Method for a common research map, 2) Capacity building actions based on the Learning by Developing pedagogical model, 3) Capacity building in talent scout and career opportunity strategy (attractiveness of research careers, including open science incentives), 4) Capacity building on equality, diversity and inclusion, 5) Methods to address enablers and barriers to integration of the InCITIES Alliance. From knowledge co-creation to joint production between European HEIs, surrounding ecosystems and citizens’ involvement, integrated actions play a key-role in achieving the consortium objectives. Capacity building actions implemented are a step towards the submission to the European Universities Initiative; it will strengthen the ERA, the EEA, and Europe’s approach to coope...

The survey is part of a partnership between OBAP - Observatório do Associativismo Popular (Observatory of Popular Activism) and OPAC - Observatório Português das Atividades Culturais (Portuguese Observatory of Cultural Activities). The research aims to map and characterize Portuguese popular associations, based on a set of questions about these associations, their activities, members, leaders and projects.OBAP is a partnership project between the Confederação Portuguesa das Colectividades de Cultura, Recreio e Desporto (Portuguese Confederation of Culture, Recreation and Sport Associations) and two Portuguese universities, Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (namely the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology) and Universidade Lusófona, whose aim is to deepen knowledge about Portuguese grassroots associations.The OPAC is a structure set up in December 2018 at Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa within the framework of the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-Iscte), which is the institution responsible for its operation and scientific coordination. Its mission is to ensure the development of accurate and up-to-date research, studies and information related with several cultural domains and themes, aiming to contribute to current debates in Portuguese society and the formulation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies.

Digital society and AI are posing new challenges to cities through opportunities to improve the performance and democratization of local and regional public administrations in their relationship with citizens and companies. Digital and AI’s impacts on the structure of inequality have not yet been sufficiently studied within and between countries and at the city levels. We aim to analyse environmental data and inequalities, by simultaneously advancing the social science problem of sustainable development, and improving the digital tools for city problem-solving, together with social stakeholders and municipalities. Through data science and the application of machine learning, statistical data, and place-based knowledge concerning climate problems, the project intends to produce a digital toolkit of geographical-interactive maps of sustainable footprint, supported by a system of multidimensional indicators of environmental inequalities and urban lifestyles, mobility patterns and transport usage.    

Athena Project aims to develop the digital skills of university professors, reinforcing their response to the challenges that universities face today and in the future. The project seeks to foster cooperative learning environments, making them transformative and inclusive through the adoption of new technologies, such as e-learning, gaming platforms, virtual and augmented reality, systematically modeled to activate key competences in digital learning. The project will create models that teachers can adopt and adapt to their classes, using different pedagogical approaches.

The political and administrative management of the healthcare crisis provoked by the COVID 19 is a key issue in preventing the spread of the disease. The Mc-COVID 19 project is set to analyse the socio-sanitary co-ordination procedures in the context of institutionalized older-age care (age group that appears particularly vulnerable in this epidemic context), in Spain as well as in the rest of the EU-15. This study focuses on the articulation of resources between health and social policies, and aim to contribute to improve the effectiveness of the decision-making process and crucial aspects in the fight against the pandemic. Findings also aim to be useful to inform other public policy sectors involved in crisis-related situations.  

How can we measure and monitor the effects of social inequalities in contemporary Portuguese society across regional, national and European scales? International agendas of human and sustainable development accept the premise that to achieve social progress, other dimensions beyond economic growth need to be accounted for. The deep inequalities in Portuguese society threaten the universality of fundamental rights and incite an urgent call for more data, based on technical and scientific knowledge, to understand the relations between inequalities and well-being as well as to frame place-based public policies and interventions. The project aims to develop a system of indicators to improve data availability, visualisation and analysis on the multidimensional relationships between living conditions and well-being in a comparative, intranational and international perspective. The model is based on the OECD framework and will be empirically supported by the European Social Survey as well as other national and international statistical sources. The key findings related to the development and analysis of this data will be considered in the second axis of the project, based on the prospective analysis, by using the Delphi method and place-based case studies. This second stage will involve the mobilization of agents (professionals, technicians and scientists) involved in the organization and implementation of public policies and recruited from the Portuguese Research Network on Public Policies (UMPP). The most valued dimensions in the definition of well-being in different social contexts will be mapped, defining 1) axes of problematic challenges in the relations between inequalities and well-being; 2) sustainable development strategies and place-based priorities from a comparative perspective at national and European levels; and (3) a quantifiable system of indicators and targets that allow the monitoring of the effects of policy action.

The work plan entitled “Social inequalities and classes in Europe: objectives of the sustainable development” [(In)Equality 2030], will focus on the causes and the consequences of the increasing of contemporary social inequalities, namely in the European social space. Having as horizon the objectives of sustainable development (UN Agenda 2030), the research will develop a system of indicators capable of consolidating new scientific advances about: i) the structure of European inequality; ii) the digital, informational and knowledge society; iii) the future of work and its institutions; iv) the liberal democracies and their forms of collective action; and v) the well-being and social progress. Such scientific advances will enrich the theories of inequalities and social classes which, taking as empirical bases the construction of a matrix of social causalities referring to the European social space, will supplant the current monolithic and opaque views of the European integration, cohesion and convergence.

EmployALL aims to study the relationship of mutual dependence between employment and social protection. In the context of the Great Recession and the ensuing 'adjustment program' in Portugal, this interdependence manifested itself as an articulation of a crisis of employment with a crisis of social protection. The employment crisis involved an unprecedented rise of unemployment, wage decline and precarious work, which increased the burden on social protection. The outcome, aggravated by cuts directly affecting social protection, was a shortfall in the responsiveness of the system to new social vulnerabilities - a crisis of social protection. The two concomitant crises widened inequalities in diverse territorial contexts. EmployALL addresses the following research questions: 1) Which mechanisms connect employment (unemployment, precarious work and wage decline) to social protection (its capacity to respond to increasing demands), and to what extent the increased pressure on, and the social protection system shortfalls have contributed to augment risks in employment and unemployment? 2) To what extent is the articulation of the employment and social protection crises converging in the production and cumulative reproduction of inequalities, and how is this process to be reversed through public policies? The project will draw on an interdisciplinary methodological framework and will use quantitative and qualitative methodologies at different territorial scales. A structure of 6 work packages (WP) will be adopted. WP1 will be devoted to the theoretical mapping of the relations of mutual dependence between employment and social protection. WP2 will characterize the employment and social protection crises in Portugal, in the context of the EU, at various national territorial scales. WP3 aims to characterize the reciprocal impacts between the employment and social protection crises in the frame of the evolving financialized accumulation regime, with particular focus on how ...

This project addresses the transformations of the employment regime that took place in Portugal in the context of global economic restructuring of the last decades and its onsequences in respect to employment and work. The deleterious impacts on work of the growing internationalization of production and concomitant financialisation have been salient in a country vulnerable to delocalization of production, macroeconomic imbalances and indebtedness. These impacts reached their zenith with the Global Financial Crisis and ensuing "troika" financial bail-out in 2011. At the time a reconfiguration of employment regime aimed at internal devaluation was spelled out in the troika's Memoradum and implemented, affecting institutions and rules governing employment protection, working time arrangements, unemployment benefits and collective bargaining. Building on previous research that characterized the institutional reconfiguration associated with internal devaluation as a regressive one that amounted to a transfer of income from labor to capital and to a change of power resources unfavorable to organized labor, the project intends to broaden this research in two different ways. First, it extends the assessment of devaluation of work to key dimensions of the quality of employment and working conditions that might have been directly deteriorated as a result of the reconfiguration of employment regime (in particular wages, working time and job security). Second, by analyzing actors' strategies and power resources at national, sector, and company level it pin points long term consequences of internal devaluation its drivers, and means to counteract them. The project conjectures that the institutional reconfiguration of the Portuguese employment regime and internal devaluation may have accelerated a process of cumulative devaluation of work involving loss of competences and skills, investment retrenchment, increasing inequalities, and demographic decay, whose relations and drivers ...

The analysis of social inequalities is one of the most important instruments for understanding the current European reality. The present project intends to contribute to this analysis, through a set of innovative contributions, both theoretical-conceptual and methodological-operative. The research is based on extensive and comparative analysis supported by international databases such as the European Social Survey, EU-SILC and others. The analysis emphasizes the systemic and multidimensional intersections between the 'class-country' structural segments and the integrated distributions of income, education, gender and age in Europe's social space.

This project aims to deconstruct a common image of ‘suburbia’ as a uniform space, where people live similar lives in similarplaces. In order to better understand the reality behind this stereotype we will inquiry into the hypothetical causal relationship between the intensity of urban sprawl and its negative effects in terms of ecological balance, social fragmentation and citizenship practices.