Sociology: Knowledge for Open and Inclusive Societies (OpenSoc)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The 4^th call for applications is open until 17 July 2026.
More information available on the Notice.

The Interuniversity PhD Programme in Sociology: Knowledge for Open and Inclusive Societies (OpenSoc) is a doctoral programme that mobilizes the theoretical, methodological and empirical heritage built up during sociology’s history, as well as its far-reaching interdisciplinary connections, in order to devise new guidelines for research and intervention in the face of present societal challenges.

The programme’s vision is encapsulated in its motto:

OPEN societies, able to deal with new and changing intersections of local, national and global; public, private, and intimate; biographies, meanings, and structures.
INCLUSIVE societies, able to use institutions, territories, groups and social networks to foster cohesion and equity in a changing, segmented and heterogeneous social fabric.
KNOWLEDGE that empowers social actors to understand and manage diversity in a reflexive way, avoiding “easy” answers which lean towards closure, homogenization, and exclusion.

In OpenSoc, we bring our efforts together to provide an answer that is itself open and inclusive, to your quest for innovation and application of sociological knowledge. The interuniversity scope of our programme allows us to bring together a highly qualified and diverse set of teachers and researchers, with knowledge and experience across multiple social problematics and analytical dimensions, the plurality of theoretical paradigms, and the diversity of methodological approaches.

The OpenSoc programme emerged out of growing collaboration in sociological research for over a decade among our universities:

the Universidade de Lisboa, through:
- the Instituto de Ciências Sociais,
- the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas,
- and the Lisbon School of Economics and Management;
the NOVA University of Lisbon, through the School of Social Sciences and Humanities;
the University of Évora, through the Institute for Advanced Studies and Research;
and the University of Algarve, through the Faculty of Economics.

Alice Ramos

Research Fellow

Ana Delicado

Senior Research Fellow

Filipe Carreira da Silva

Research Professor

José Luís Garcia

Retired Researcher

Mónica Truninger

Senior Research Fellow

Sofia Aboim

Research Professor

Verónica Policarpo

Senior Research Fellow

Vitor Sérgio Ferreira

Senior Research Fellow

Vanessa Cunha

Research Fellow

Vasco Ramos

Research Fellow

Raquel Rego

Investigadora Associada Antiga

Fábio Rafael Augusto

Junior Researcher

The study plan is organized into four years (240 ECTS credits). We have defined a four-year horizon because we believe that conceiving and executing a project and writing down the thesis require that amount of time studying, reflecting and discussing to mature innovative and robust research at the boundaries of sociological knowledge, and indeed expanding them.

The first year is composed of seminars for advanced learning, updating and deepening of theoretical and methodological knowledge and skills, having as its backbone the development of the students’ doctoral research projects. The class burden is of 8 hours a week, after working hours (from 6 p.m.), so as to accommodate study and tutorial support with other activities. Weekly classes take place in one of the institutions located in Lisbon.

Besides the seminars, during the first year each student benefits of the support of an assigned tutor, a professor or researcher in one of the institutions collaborating in OpenSoc, and from the second year on of a thesis supervisor chosen from among the teaching and research staff of the associated institutions.

The first year’s course culminates with the discussion and assessment of the students’ projects in Research Seminar II, leading up to the registration of the thesis and to the awarding of a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Sociology.

The three remaining years are fully devoted to the implementation of the doctoral research project and the writing down of the thesis, followed and supported by the supervisor and by periodical discussions in the research seminars.

The thesis project is registered in the institution to which the supervisor belongs, but it goes on being discussed in joint research seminars. Upon successful completion, the four universities will jointly award the doctoral degree.

At ICS-ULisboa, each PhD student is integrated in one of the Research Groups of the Institute, the most suitable to the theme of your thesis project, and called to follow up and participate actively in the activities of the GI.

1^st YEAR - 1^st SEMESTER

Curricular Units	ECTS
Sociological Theories: The Classics	8 ECTS
Research Methodology	8 ECTS
Advanced Seminar in Sociology I	4 ECTS
Research Seminar I	10 ECTS

1^st YEAR - 2^nd SEMESTER

Curricular Units	ECTS
Advanced Seminar in Sociology II	4 ECTS
Research Seminar II	10 ECTS
Contemporary Theoretical Debates	8 ECTS
Elective Units	8 ECTS

2^nd YEAR

Curricular Units	ECTS
Research Seminar III	5 ECTS
Thesis	55 ECTS

3^rd YEAR

Curricular Units	ECTS
Research Seminar IV	5 ECTS
Thesis	55 ECTS

4^th YEAR

Curricular Units	ECTS
Research Seminar V	5 ECTS
Thesis	55 ECTS

A3ES Accreditation

Accreditation of New Study Programme (2014)
Accreditation of Study Programme in Operation (2021)

Applications

Applications 2026/2027

Notice

1^st Call

Applications: 7 January to 13 February 2026
Interviews: 16 to 24 February 2026
Results: 27 February 2026
Preliminary hearing: up to 10 work days after publication
Registration period: 10 days after homologation of the application

2^nd Call

The 2^nd call of applications will only take place when the number of vacancies is not completed by the enrolment of applicants admitted in the 1^st call, and only for the vacancies that are have not yet been filled.

Applications: 16 February to 10 April 2026
Interviews: 13 to 22 April 2026
Results: 24 April 2026
Preliminary hearing: up to 10 work days after publication
Registration period: 10 days after homologation of the application

3^rd Call

The 3^rd call of applications will only take place when the number of vacancies is not completed by the enrolment of applicants admitted in the 2^nd call, and only for the vacancies that are have not yet been filled.

Applications: 13 April to 5 May 2026
Interviews: 11 to 15 May 2026
Results: 19 May 2026
Preliminary hearing: up to 10 work days after publication
Registration period: 10 days after homologation of the application

4^th Call

The 4^th call of applications will only take place when the number of vacancies is not completed by the enrolment of applicants admitted in the 3^rd call, and only for the vacancies that are have not yet been filled.

Applications: 6 May to 17 July 2026
Interviews: 20 to 29 July 2026
Results: 31 July 2026
Preliminary hearing: up to 10 work days after publication
Registration period: 10 days after homologation of the application

5^th Call

The 5^th call of applications will only take place when the number of vacancies is not completed by the enrolment of applicants admitted in the 4^th call, and only for the vacancies that are have not yet been filled.

Applications: 20 July to 28 August 2026
Interviews: 1 to 11 September 2026
Results: 14 September
Preliminary hearing: up to 10 work days after publication
Registration period: 10 days after homologation of the application

Applications through the ICS FenixEdu platform: https://fenix.ics.ulisboa.pt.
To create a registration, please access https://fenix.ics.ulisboa.pt/accountCreation.
In case you already have a registration, you can recover the access at https://fenix.ics.ulisboa.pt/passwordResetRequest.
In case you already have a student number at ICS, you should use your Campus account credentials. You may recover your access to this account at https://utilizador.ulisboa.pt.

The application fee is €50.00.

Requirements

The following are admitted as applicants:

Holders of a master’s degree or equivalent in Sociology or any field of social sciences and humanities;
Holders of a bachelor’s degree or equivalent, with a particularly relevant academic or scientific curriculum in other scientific fields that is recognised by the Scientific Committee of the PhD as demonstrating the capacity to undertake this PhD programme;
Holders of an academic, scientific or professional curriculum that is recognised by the Scientific Committee of the PhD as demonstrating the capacity to undertake this PhD programme.

Applications must be submitted with the following documents:

Documents proving that the candidate meets the requirements stipulated in 2., as well as the academic classifications/grades referred to in 3.1.1. a) and b) or 3.1.2. a); if the aforementioned documents are found in any language other than those designated above, they must be accompanied by an official translation into one of those languages;
Updated academic, scientific, and professional curriculum vitae, including published or duly documented works;
A research project presented according to the model adopted in the FCT doctoral scholarship competition; or, alternatively, a detailed proposal of a research topic or problem, including an abstract (max. 150 words) and a presentation of the research topic or problem, justifying its sociological relevance (max. 1,500 words);
A letter of intent, detailing your intellectual and professional motivations for joining the Doctoral Programme;
Citizen Card or Passport. The provision of identification documents may be replaced, at the candidate's discretion, by in-person presentation at the institution, which will keep the relevant information contained therein for registration, including civil, tax and social security identification numbers, as well as the validity of the respective documents;
Payment of the application fee, a non-refundable amount if you are excluded, not admitted or withdraw.

The documents must be presented in Portuguese, English, French, Italian, or Spanish. In case the documents are in any other language, you must present the original document accompanied by an official translation into any of the described languages.

Admission

Places: The number of available places for this PhD programme is 15.

The applicants will be ranked according to the final classifications attributed to the applications by the Selection Jury, based on individual merit, and expressed in a scale of 0 to 20 values, taking under consideration the academic, scientific and professional curriculums, the projects, and letters of interest to follow the doctoral programme. The following criteria are considered:

Holders of Master's degree, or legal equivalent, in Sociology or any other field in social sciences and humanities:
1. The academic grade of the Master's degree (10%);
2. The academic grade of the Bachelor's degree (10%);
3. The global evaluation of the academic, scientific and professional curriculum (20%);
4. The evaluation of the research project or research theme propoposal, and the letter of interest (30%);
5. The evaluation of the interview (30%).
Holders of Bachelor's degree or legal equivalent:
1. The academic grade of the Bachelor's degree (10%);
2. The global evaluation of the academic, scientific and professional curriculum (30%);
3. The evaluation of the research project or research theme propoposal, and the letter of interest (30%);
4. The evaluation of the interview (30%).
Applicants that are not holders of Higher Education degrees or legal equivalent:
1. The global evaluation of the academic, scientific and professional curriculum (40%);
2. The evaluation of the research project or research theme propoposal, and the letter of interest (30%);
3. The evaluation of the interview (30%).

The Selection Jury will carry out the interviews, which may, if necessary, take place via videoconference.
After evaluating the applications according to the defined criteria and weightings, the Selection Jury will rank the applications, in descending order of their final classifications.
Candidates whose final application rating is lower than 14 points will be excluded from registration in the doctoral programme.
Candidates whose final application classification is equal to or greater than 14 points and, cumulatively, whose order number in the final ranking is less than or equal to the number of vacancies fixed will be admitted to enrolment in the doctoral programme. Applications whose order number in the final ranking is higher than the number of vacancies will be placed as alternates.
Candidates placed as alternates will be admitted to enrol in the doctoral programme in any remaining vacancies after the deadline for registration, in ascending order of their order number in the final ranking.