The PIDSS – the Inter University Doctoral Degree Program in Social Work results from an association between the Faculty of Human Sciences (FCH-UCP), a pioneer in launching a doctoral degree program in this field, and the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra (FPCE-UC), the oldest university in the country.

In continuity with the program previously developed by the two universities, the PIDSS clearly assumes the importance of scientific research, the complex interconnections between theoretical knowledge and learning, methodologies and operational practices as well as the relevance of planning, reflection, evaluation and analysis - micro and macro contextual – for the effective implementation of integrated development processes capable of fostering social and economic cohesion whether in the context of Portuguese societies or at the European and international levels.

In effect, many fields of intervention do display great complexity and diversity in the questions facing theoretical and empirical justification in this field of knowledge. The evolution in social needs and the ways of responding to them also shows that there is a need to theorise professional practices and social interactions in terms of their multidisciplinary foundations, re-layering the functions of social protection from an integrated, interdisciplinary, systemic, participative and multicultural perspective, which shall only prove attainable through deep reaching doctoral reflection and analysis.

These objectives are enabled by the association between FCH-UCP and FPCE-UC, two benchmark universities of renowned merit, and their pooled connections with diverse universities in leading international partnerships with both nationally and internationally referenced researchers and research centres of renown.