Centre for the Study of Socioeconomic Change and the Territory is an Iscte Research Unit which combines fundamental and applied research on economic, social and cultural topics. It carries out advanced international research systematically grounded on interdisciplinarity. With the aim of framing a new approach to sustainable development, our research seeks to contribute to the understanding of the contemporary world through the analysis of the contexts, the actors and the consequences of change, with a focus on institutional frameworks, and through extensive recourse to comparative approaches. Devoting special attention to the dynamics and changes of the Portuguese society, the researchers of DINÂMIA’CET-Iscte are engaged in contributing to the design of the future, and, when considered appropriate (e.g. to promote environmental sustainability, social cohesion and democracy), do not hesitate to expressly endorse a normative approach.

In order to conduct this mission, the Centre mobilizes a plural array of theoretical and methodological resources guided by a common core purpose: to understand the nature of the dynamics underlying the socioeconomic and territorial changes, their genesis in the inter-play between collective public and private actors in different domains (e.g. markets, territorial communities, public spaces), as well as their impact, in particular in spatial terms (landscapes, morphology).