Research at the Political and Socials Sciences' ACU

The Department of Political and Social Sciences was formally founded in 1996, although an earlier group had existed since 1991. Since then, it has managed to consolidate a series of research areas and has established itself as an attractive academic institution with a strong, international profile. Today, our unit offers academic programmes and research in the fields of political science, public administration, sociology, social psychology, social determinants of health, criminology, and social science methodology. We currently have around a hundred researchers in all, including tenured, tenure-track and visiting teaching staff and pre- and postdoctoral researchers.

Our unit is organized into two scientific sections: Political Sciences and Sociology - Demography. It also includes the sub-sections of Social Psychology and Social Science Methodology. The two scientific sections are organized into ten main lines of research, each associated with a different research group. All postgraduate programmes are taught in English; in fact, most of our master’s and doctoral students (around 80%) are international, primarily from Europe and Latin America, but also the United States, Canada, the Middle East and North Africa.

 

Facilities

The new UPF Research Park building, located in the Mercè Rodoreda complex on the Ciutadella campus, opened its doors in 2015.

The new facilities, spanning a total of 8,700 m2, complement the existing complex, which was inaugurated in 2008. The entire UPF Research Park was created with a view to occupying a key position on the map of research and knowledge transfer in the social sciences and humanities, bringing together internationally acclaimed research groups from the university, joint centres and prestigious institutions in a single setting.

The university is committed to the creation of this shared physicla space, which encourages interaction within this critical mass of knowledge and aspires to become one of Europe's leading research hubs.