Centre for Social Studies - University of Coimbra

The Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra is a scientific institution focused on research and advanced training within the Social Sciences, the Arts, and the Humanities through an inter- and transdisciplinary approach. The Ministry of Science granted CES the status of Associated Laboratory in 2002, recognising its contribution to public policies, advanced training and the dissemination and sharing of knowledge.

Since its foundation in 1978, CES has been conducting research with and for an inclusive, innovative, and reflexive society by promoting creative, critical approaches in the face of some of the most urgent challenges of contemporary societies. Its goal is to continue engaging generations of exceptionally talented researchers and students in the field of Social Sciences and the Humanities. CES was classified as "Excellent" in the last international evaluation process carried out by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.

CES's scientific strategy aims to democratise knowledge, revitalise human rights, and contribute to the establishment of science as a public commodity. We pursue this mission by continuously reshaping our research fields in response to the needs of society. Our work covers a wide range of scientific activities and scope at the national and international level, with a particular focus on the North-South and South-North dialogues, contributing to the development, dissemination, and application of cutting-edge science and advanced research and training of excellence.

Role within PROTEMO

CES coordinates two Work Packages (WP) in PROTEMO and coordinates or collaborates in tasks across all others. In WP1, CES coordinates the consolidation of the interdisciplinary ‘Theoretical and conceptual framework’ of PROTEMO, which steers the mixed methodological approach and a multi-layered analysis. Key concepts of the project are reviewed, elaborated, and operationalised; they include affective citizenship, emotional needs, emotional entrepreneurs, emotional dynamics, social identity, social categorisation, and social representations of multi-layered citizenship and protection. In WP4 CES coordinates the research at the group and societal levels in order to understand emotional dynamics that inform and are informed by policy-making. The entanglement of social identities and social representation is investigated in relation to affective citizenship. The mixed method research includes critical discourse theory and social representations and is adopted to analyse social representations of protection with a focus on migration. CES participates in tasks related to data collection, elaboration, and analysis, as well as academic communication and social dissemination of knowledge. Specifically, CES contributes to the preparation of the cross-national survey and related data analysis, the definition and collection of content from (social) media, policy documents, and political communication, the data collection with citizens and non-citizens, the identification of different social representations and social positions, the study of emotion narrative related to migration in Italy and to the war in Ukrainian collaborating with refugees in four EU countries, and analyses the emotional impact of protective policies of housing rights in Portugal. CES coordinates the organisation of PROTEMO’s kick-off meeting, the first synergy meeting with other HEU consortia, and two internal workshops on the theoretical framework, methodological and empirical results, and challenges.

Main contacts

Dr Cristiano Gianolla

coordinator

Prof Clara Cruz Santos

Dr Gaia Giuliani

Prof Luciana Sotero

Dr Raquel Ribeiro

Miriam Jawadi

Our Perspective
on PROTEMO

PROTEMO is an ambitious, sophisticated, and solidly structured project, that conducts interdisciplinary and broad-ranging research with an innovative mixed methodology. It will shed light on the central role of emotion in public policy processes related to the protection of diverse populations in various socio-political contexts.