PhD in History: Change and continuity in a global world (PIUDHIST)
PhD in History: Change and continuity in a global world (PIUDHIST)
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The Interuniversity PhD Programme in History: change and continuity in a global world (PIUDHist) began in the academic year 2008-2009 and was restructured in 2013-2014, receiving the qualification of FCT Doctorate.
With an innovative curricular organization, the programme includes four defined fields of specialization following a thematic criterion – social dynamics and political structures; institutions and economic development; empires, colonialism and post-colonialism; intellectual and sociocultural movements – definitively going beyond the traditional organization of PhDs in History in specializations bound to chronological periods. This favours a transversal and comparative training, articulated around medium and long-term approaches, which enhances the scientific quality of training and research.
In Portugal, PIUDHist is the first doctoral programme in History that is based on an interuniversitary parternship, bringing together five Portuguese university institutes:
Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa (ICS-ULisboa)
Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa (FLUL)
ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL)
Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP)
Universidade de Évora (UE)
The purpose of the present design is to develop an approach to History which will be broad enough to permit an understanding of the world as it is today and, in particular, of what determines its perennial traits, as well as the changes and the ruptures to which society is constantly exposed. That understanding is not possible without an historical education. This essentially macro vision by no means denies the micro dimension of many of the research topics to which students may be drawn or which teachers in the programme wish to pursue. It considers, however, that narrower lines of analysis ought to be complemented always by an effort to contextualize them and to set them in the appropriate comparative perspective. It also regards as a necessity a high degree of openness to the possibilities offered by different theoretical and methodological streams within History, in order to achieve a truly comprehensive interpretation of historical phenomena.
One of the strong points of PIUDHist is its goal of creating an active community of students, teachers and researchers, who will thus come to benefit from the reciprocal impact on each other of their respective research undertakings. In fact, a doctoral programme such as this can only make proper sense insofar as it is capable of binding together the efforts of individuals into a structured, wider ensemble.