PhD > Social Work

Coordinator Message

Maria João Pena

“Research is a condition for the affirmation of Social Work as a scientific discipline, and research in Social Work is implicated in intervention, constituting a process that allows social problems to be reduced and people's well-being to be promoted.”

The program essentially aims to promote practice-oriented learning in Research and Development (R&D). It also aims to promote and contribute to the acquisition of research skills integrated into an environment of intensive national or international knowledge production, including higher education institutions, Associated Laboratories, and other public research institutions, from entities integrated into the Public Administration (in which R&D activities are carried out), to private non-profit institutions (whose main purpose is R&D activities).

It has a line of training in social research methods, integrating curricular units on qualitative and quantitative methods into the syllabus, improving learning and mastery of mixed methods, as well as others of a more theoretical nature, geared towards the exercise of producing knowledge. 

OBJECTIVES

1. To qualify teachers, researchers and professionals at a scientific level, forming a “critical mass” in the field of Social Work;
2. To analyze and understand the epistemological, theoretical and empirical foundations of Social Work, within the framework of contemporary social transformations;
3. Deepen the analysis of social intervention practice based on research;
4. Carry out and develop advanced research in the field of professional practice, as well as the analysis of social policies in diverse social and institutional contexts;
5. Encourage scientific exchange and debate between national, European and international research networks;
6. Encourage the publication of scientific production in Social Work.

THESIS DEFENDED

SHOW MORE