ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon

Teaching Programmes

ISCTE-IUL comprises about 9,000 students and close to 350 professors. The institution confers Bachelor's, Master's, PhD and Habilitation degrees in programmes such as Anthropology, Sociology, History, Social Psychology, Political Science, Planning, Architecture, Economics, Finance, Business administration and Management, Human Resources, Marketing, Computer Science, Telecommunications Engineering, or Industrial Engineering.

History

ISCTE-IUL was established in Lisbon in 1972 as ISCTE using the faculty and facilities of the Instituto de Estudos Sociais (Institute of Social Studies, founded in 1963) as a first step towards a new and innovative public university in Lisbon. Its present designation dates from 2009.
From its creation ISCTE-IUL was authorized to grant the bachelor's degree and the licenciatura degree, which was granted after completion of a four to five years long program that often required writing a final dissertation and thus was roughly equivalent to the current master's degree, instituted as part of the Bologna process. From 1983 onwards, ISCTE-IUL was also authorized to grant the master's degree, which was higher than the current Bologna process master's degree but still lower than a doctorate degree).
What was to be the first college of a never completed larger projected university (due to the carnation revolution of 1974) always remained as a non-integrated University Institute - situation that was institutionalized in 1988. From that date onwards, ISCTE-IUL grants all academic degrees, comprising Bachelors, Masters, PhDs, Honorary doctorates and Habilitations (called Agregação in Portuguese).
ISCTE-IUL is today part of both the Fundação das Universidades Portuguesas (Foundation of Portuguese Universities) and the Conselho de Reitores das Universidades Portuguesas (Council of Rectors of the Portuguese Universities). It is also one of the few public universities in Portugal with a foundational nature, together with the University of Porto and the University of Aveiro.