The Department of Anthropology at Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon was founded in 1982; since then, it has been a reference point for teaching and research in Anthropology in Portugal, offering an undergraduate programme, a Master's, two PhD programmes, and various other postgraduate courses.

The Department pursues the aim of providing students and researchers with a solid theoretical and scientific education, granting them the necessary instruments for carrying on research and the professional skills needed to analyze the social, ethical and political implications of the inter-cultural relations that comprise contemporary societies, as well as intervene in areas involving knowledge, ethnographic material and immaterial heritage

In close connection with the associated research unit, the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), the Department focuses on strategic areas of teaching and research such as the context of Lusophony, the issues of social and human development and the promotion of techniques and audiovisual media as a means of production and dissemination of anthropological knowledge. The group of lecturers and researchers is also dedicated to pursuing and directing research in the range of areas (theoretical, methodological, and ethnographic) which characterize Anthropology, constituting its unique identity in the framework of the Social Sciences and Humanities.

Compared with other such departments in Portugal, the Department of Anthropology of Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon offers the greatest diversity of themes in its courses, and receives both the greatest number of students and the highest assessments in external and international evaluations.