Master's degree in Labour Sciences and Industrial Relations (in Portuguese only)

Master's degree in Labour Sciences and Industrial Relations (in Portuguese only)

Throughout the first decade of the 21st century labor problems at labor organizations and society at large have been gradually coming back to their right place in the consideration of researchers, managers and political leaders. Whether regarding the problems concerning the maintenance of the Welfare State and the "European social model", or the transformations that took place in production systems and the problems of economic competitiveness or regarding the efficiency of public services in a globalized world, it is becoming increasingly evident that macro and micro-economic solutions depend on the labor management and organization and the efficient and fair regulation or labor relations. In that context, the organizational and political management teams frequently lack the knowledge, the skills and, especially, the comprehension that may be provided by an interdisciplinary and comparative advanced course in the field of Labor Sciences and Industrial Relations. Consequently, the great advantage of the training provided by this Master's is its articulated combination of generalized and specialized approaches, as well as national and comparative, on these issues.

This course provides in-depth knowledge in the fields of Labor Sciences and Labor Relations, with the purpose of developing a specialization in the respective research and intervention areas.

Thus, the course has an interdisciplinary nature, offering a simultaneously academic and instrumental training, applicable to scientific research in these areas and to the intervention at various levels of business, social and political management (labor conflict management, human resources management, trade union management, labor relations consulting, etc.). The course comprises issues with national impact and in the wider context of the European Union.

Hence, the curriculum is, in the first semester, more focused on the subject's core and information about the Portuguese case. The second semester is more focused on the comparative approaches of the systems of industrial and labor relations and the social and employment policies in the European context.

The Master's in Labor Sciences and Industrial Relations also has the particularity of being integrated in an European university network that are among the most important European centers of study and training in this field: the European Masters in Labor Studies. This privileged situation favors interesting opportunities, especially for the students, such as academic exchange programmes and the visits of faculty members from other institutions in the network to lecture. The students of this course have the opportunity to attend the second semester in one of the other universities that are part of the network, and every participant benefits from the potential access to academic and scientific resources that surpass those provided by our institution alone.