This programme offers advanced and interdisciplinary training in urban research through a perspective that integrates various disciplines such as Sociology, Anthropology, History, Geography, Economics, Architecture and Urbanism. The programme breaks new ground in Portugal, encouraging critical reflection on urban issues that are of increasingly import in a country that, in recent decades, has experienced an intense and complex process of urbanization. Furthermore, the programme promotes the linkage between scientific research and professional practice in various contexts of intervention, both public and private.

The research conducted within this programme lies between the domains of multiple research centres accredited by the FCT in both institutions, thus creating a space of interdisciplinary reflection around the knowledge derived from their specific research projects. In Iscte, these centres include CIES, DINAMIA'CET, and CRIA; in FCSH-UNL, they are CICS.NOVA and IHA.