Doctoral Program in Culture Studies

The Doctoral Program in Culture Studies is part of a network hosted by the Lisbon Consortium that brings together the academy and the art world through a partnership between the MA and PhD Programs in Culture Studies at Universidade Católica Portuguesa and prominent cultural institutions in Lisbon (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Cinemateca Portuguesa, Museu Nacional do Teatro e da Dança, Culturgest, Fundação Oriente, Centro Nacional de Cultura, Oceanário de Lisboa, Parques de Sintra-Monte da Lua, Fundação EDP, Fundação Millennium BCP, Fundação Amélia de Mello and Câmara Municipal de Lisboa).

The Doctoral Program in Culture Studies is a four-year research program in the Humanities and Social Sciences aimed at graduates and professionals from the cultural sector who wish to advance their university education within a theoretically solid and groundbreaking framework.

The program is born out of the commitment to develop a doctoral program that promotes both high-level research training at the forefront of scientific interest and responds to the cultural sector's growing call for highly qualified professionals. It is inspired by the ‘collaborative turn' on two levels: firstly as a model of advanced research training that draws from artistic practice and cultural management to reflect on theory and in turn embeds practice in theoretically informed premises; secondly as a form of doctoral training that is transnational by definition, because the study of culture inevitably deals with diversity.

The program intends to inspire students to customize their curriculum and is committed to supporting work placement. It will provide doctoral students with methodological tools for cultural analysis, challenging them to revise phenomena that are either "invisible" or undervalued by contemporary societies while encouraging a look into the humanist tradition to deepen the understanding of the discourses and creations that have molded cultural history. Consequently, it aims to promote original and internationally relevant research and to integrate doctoral students into multinational research teams. In addition, it will support knowledge transfer, urging students to take their work outside the seminar room and interact with professional realities other than academia.

Therefore, the Lisbon Consortium offers a Summer School for all the Master's and Ph.D. students, an annual Graduate Conference fully organized by Ph.D. students, as well as an online journal published bi-annually under the editorial direction of students in the doctoral program in Cultural Studies.

Students of the Ph.D. Program in Culture Studies of The Lisbon Consortium can apply to the Ph.D. Net - European Doctoral Program in Literary and Cultural Studies, an international network between UCP, University of Giessen, University of Helsinki, University of Bergamo, University of Stockholm, University of Graz, and the University of Warwick.