ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

Iscte was created in 1972, under the acronym ISCTE – Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa, to teach undergraduate courses in the fields of sociology and management and aimed to be a new university education institution in the framework of the “Veiga Simão reform”. Over the years, Iscte has increased in size and scope within new scientific areas. Today it has five schools on two campuses, one in Lisbon and one also in Sintra since 2022.

In 1997, Iscte joined the Foundation of Portuguese Universities and, in 2005, the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities (CRUP).

In 2009, while maintaining its role as a public university, Iscte became one of the three Portuguese universities under a Public Foundation regime, managed under private law. Alongside this change, it also changes its designation to Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon).

In 2010, it adopted a new organizational structure based on 16 departments and four schools: ECSH – School of Social Sciences and Humanities / ESPP – School of Sociology and Public Policy / IBS – Iscte Business School / ISTA – School of Technology and Architecture.

In 2020, the President of the Republic distinguished Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa with the Order of Public Instruction.

In 2021, construction began on Iscte Knowledge and Innovation, a building complex intended for the Technology Transfer and Valorization Center (CVTT), which will house eight research centers (all classified as Excellent or Very Good), ten laboratories and three observatories.

In 2022-2023, teaching will begin at the fifth school: the Iscte Sintra School of Digital Technologies, Economics, and Society, a new campus located 30 km from Lisbon. It will offer eight innovative degrees which excel at the intersection of technology and social sciences, stimulating applied research and interdisciplinarity, characteristics of Iscte throughout its 50 years in existence.

The anniversary was marked on December 7th, 2022, at the “National Meeting 50 Years of Veiga Simão Reform, 50 years of Democracy”, an initiative aimed to debate the “University: Key to the Future”, which mobilized Iscte, the Commission of the Commemorations of the 50th Anniversary of the 25th of April, and CRUP, and had the High Patronage of the President of the Portuguese Republic.

Currently, Iscte has more than 13 thousand students of 90 nationalities, with about 60% in post-graduate education.

Rector’s Message

ISCTE has grown as a multidisciplinary space, by crossing and developing its founding subject fields. Today, we are a unique university institution in the Portuguese higher education landscape. The dialogue between the scientific fields of our schools – Social Sciences and Humanities, Management, Sociology and Public Policies, Technologies and Architecture – generates unique opportunities.

The complexity of the challenges we face today, from globalization to digital transformation, from climate change to social, economic and territorial inequalities, requires a mobilization of knowledge produced in all subject areas. No single scientific field produces enough knowledge to solve any of these problems. We need to continue to produce specialized knowledge in all fields, from fundamental to applied sciences, from social to natural sciences, from technologies to arts. But we also need, now more than ever, to develop multidisciplinary collaborative work, to build bridges that link and articulate our various knowledges.

Over the last five decades, ISCTE has also grown as a plural space, promoting inclusion and diversity. This distinctive feature is revealed in the ability to integrate all those who want to study, welcoming national and international students, young and old, and cultivating and stimulating outreach practices.
In 2019, we launched two new areas of education and research: Humanitarian Action and Data Science. In both cases, we sought to meet the challenges of our time, leveraging and crossing skills, competences and knowledge available at ISCTE. This is the path we prefer: growing through multidisciplinary initiatives, especially at postgraduate level, articulating different areas of knowledge.

My proposal, as Rector, is that, when developing new initiatives in the fields of education and research, we give priority to the options of interdisciplinary dialogue and openness to the global world, valuing the social relevance of our contribution. Only in this way will ISCTE continue to be a space for growth and innovation.

A space for everyone – staff, faculty, researchers and students, who make the ISCTE community.

Ph. D. Maria de Lourdes Rodrigues