Editorial - DEC Scientific Coordination

The start of a new academic year is always exciting and offers another opportunity for scientific and pedagogical renewal. This year, 2023-2024, we have good reason to celebrate the Doctoral Programme in Contemporary Studies (DEC) as a fundamental vector of the scientific project of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20). It consolidates a doctoral programme that stands out at national and international level, based on the construction and integration of interdisciplinary knowledge and attentive to the uncertainties and global challenges we face today.

This academic year is also the last to be included in the current cycle of evaluation of research units by the FCT. It is therefore also a time to take stock of a journey that has lasted several years, during which we have counted on the commitment of various coordinators and in which we have worked on intensively on aspects such as a new curriculum, the integration of a research culture, internationalisation and disciplinary diversification, and scientific and financial opportunities for student research.

We believe it is important to highlight the restructuring of the curriculum that will come into effect this academic year, which has recently been validated by the A3ES accreditation and evaluation process. The new plan introduces a number of changes to the curriculum that are expected to promote a deeper methodological understanding of the arts, humanities and social sciences and to contribute to a better interdisciplinary understanding. The changes will also have an impact on the scientific path of the students after the second year of the curriculum, allowing them to be more closely, progressively and integrally involved in the scientific dynamics, activities and debates of the Centre. These curricular changes are also strengthened by the integrative initiative of CEIS20 to promote a network of early career researchers, dedicated to creating scientific and pedagogical opportunities for the Centre’s doctoral and postdoctoral students.

The coordination of this process is also anchored in the ability to attract and retain students and projects of high quality. To this end, the FCT doctoral fellowships (in the framework of the DEC) have been used to increase the attractiveness of the programme, which stands out nationally and internationally for its culture of interdisciplinarity.

The future of the DEC lies in its excellence and its essential contribution to building a scientific culture of interdisciplinarity at CEIS20, with the training of high potential researchers, equipped with scientific, critical and humanistic thinking, capable of thinking and acting on contemporary complexity, based on the use of methodology and the production of interdisciplinary knowledge.

Scientific Coordination of the Doctoral Programme in Contemporary Studies – CEIS20

José Oliveira Martins, Dina Sebastião, Francisco Pinheiro