The project's main goal is to build a regular observation system, on an annual basis, of the reading practices of students in compulsory education, particularly to its main indicators of characterization, monitoring and evaluation.  The production of annual reports on the evolution of reading practices, in the context of the growing integration of information and communication technologies in economic, social and cultural activities in modern contemporary societies, will strengthen the ability to diagnose problems and construct solutions in this area, thus responding to the demand for evidence-based public policies.  

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.

Following the research on the reading practices of Portuguese students, PNL2027 [National Reading Plan] started in 2022 the study on Reading Promotion Practices among the young population. The new study aims to characterize reading mediators, as well as the census, analysis and discussion of reading promotion practices among the school-age population, between 6 and 18 years old. The universe of the study is made up of a wide range of players who, in different contexts, share the responsibility for encouraging reading: primary school teachers, teachers of Portuguese in the remaining primary and secondary school cycles, librarian teachers, librarians and curators of PNL2027 projects or other reading promotion projects. This study is conducted by OPAC - Portuguese Observatory of Cultural Activities, a structure of CIES-Iscte and has the collaboration of the National School Libraries Network [RBE] and the Directorate General of Education and Science Statistics [DGEEC]. Funding is provided by McDonald's. 

The main objective of this project is to understand and intervene on lifelong learning in the municipality of Cascais, designing a programme to be developed within two years. The programme aims to respond to the challenges and needs of the various publics, namely those who have already been or are covered by initiatives in the scope of the different dynamics and modalities of lifelong learning, and also the publics traditionally distant from those dynamics and modalities. The first year of the programme is devoted to the design of the plan.    

This study aims to monitor and analyze the PICCLE - Intervention Plan for Citizens Competent in Reading and Writing, a project of the National Reading Plan (PNL2027). Specifically, it aims to design and implement a tool for monitoring and evaluating the results of the use of the digital platform developed under PICCLE, focusing on its application in a number of pilot schools.

Study promoted by the National Reading Plan 2027 (PNL 2027) in partnership with the General Directorate of Statistics of Education and Science (DGEEC) and  the School Libraries Network (RBE), on the non-school reading practices of primary and secondary education students. The methodology is quantitative, from a survey to a representative sample of the various levels of education. The research team counts on the consultancy of Isabel Alçada, former minister of education and ex-Commissioner of the National Reading Plan.

Through the analysis of different empirical fields, the project aims to explore the realities and potentialities of the dialogues between scientists and citizens in contemporary societies, contributing to the advancement of knowledge about modes of relation to science, in a perspective of social progress, social responsibility and the cognitive and democratic empowerment of citizens.

  The main objective of the project is to conduct a sociological research about health literacy in the Portuguese society, mapping its characteristics and distribution in the population, the main limitations, problems and obstacles to their development and also the potential for action to improve it. Studies already carried out in Portugal, although of a partial nature, allow us to anticipate that the gaps and problems in the field of health literacy are by no means negligible in Portuguese society.   The research will have as its starting point the work "Health Literacy - The Solid Facts", authored by WHO Europe of 2013 and the results of the application of a similar survey conducted in Ireland ("The European Health Literacy Survey: Results from Ireland ), from April 2012. Drawing on the information-gathering tools used in these studies (translated and adapted), and following equivalent sampling procedures, a nation-wide research will be developed in a way that, for the first time, characterizes the health literacy profile of the Portuguese population. At the same time, the research will seek to situate the results of Portugal in this domain in the context of the European countries participating in the Health Literacy Survey.

The project is focused on five major areas over which the impacts of the crises will be more closely assessed: the initial education and training; the institutional paths for transition from school/training to work; adult education and lifelong learning; the transparency of qualifications and the articulation between the education and training systems; the structure of services and benefits aiming at guaranteeing universal access to the education and training systems.For each of these five areas, the following key dimensions of analysis are considered: (a) diversity and relative importance of available pathways within the system, (b) curricula; (c) human resources (d) budget and funding circuits; (e) the quantity and quality of physical spaces. Results indicators will be analyzed in all five areas, such as coverage and attainment.

The central aim of the research is precisely to obtain a deeper knowledge of schools (their organization and operations, organizational climate, the practices and representations of teachers) so as to understand the specificities that contribute to the differentiation of results between schools, using pupils with a similar social profile as the staring point. As a complement to this, the study articulates extensive-quantitative and an intensive-qualitative components (multiple case study).

The central purpose of the research is to relate school results with a series of variables characterising the pupils and their families in order to measure their effect on these results. We plan to analyse the results achieved in national 4th, 6th and 9th grade exams considering the effects, on one hand, of the pupils’ sex, place of birth and nationality and, on the other hand, the class, place of birth and nationality of their parents. Subsidiarily, we will identify schools with dissimilar results but very similar student populations in terms of social condition and the national origin of their families, and explore some aspects of the “school effect” (leadership profile, education plan and organisation of classes and periods) on achievement or failure.

The aim of the project is to assure the participation of Portugal on PIAAC, a large scale assessment. PIAAC is an International study, promoted by OECD, aiming to assess adult competencies. A survey will be conducted in about 30 OECD country members to measure skills of literacy, numeracy and problem solving in rich technology environments, among the population between 16 and 65 years old. The assessment will be available and undertaken in two different formats: paper or computer based.

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.

The identification of the population's literacy profiles and the main factors behind them. To expand and update the concept of literacy.

This project is linked to a wider range european investigation, which involves eleven E.U. countries around some specific goals: to study the effects of social policies in the division of paid and unpaid work betwen men and women and to infer, from the attained research results social policy measures towards the promotion of a fairer sexual division of labour.

It is intended that this project should fill in certain significant lacunae in the treatment of a suject as important as that of the processes of modernization in contemporary Portuguese society.  The central objective of this project is to proceed towards a sociological analysis, strongle rooted in the theoretical field and solidly supported by empirical evidence, of the processes of reshaping of the social structures which are at present affecting Portuguese society.