The Doctor of Legal Studies (PhD) goal is to help students understand existing legal rules and doctrines, with their underlying policy arguments, so that they can think about these arguments, prepare to present an argument and let their own voices be heard.

The PhD program in Catholic Porto aims to train quality researchers, contributing to the development of research in the Faculty, as well as to the critical and responsible construction of legal science in Portugal.

NOVA School of Law’s 3rd Cycle Programme in Law is a four-year program leading to a Ph.D. degree in Law. The Programme comprises a taught component (over three semesters) where advanced legal studies are carried out with an interdisciplinary focus. This period also provides training in research methodologies and other complementary skills. Towards the end of the taught component of the Programme, candidates must prepare and publicly defend their thesis project.

Undertaking doctoral research allows you to develop in-depth knowledge while making a meaningful contribution to your chosen field. With guidance from our expert supervisors, you'll carry out extensive independent research culminating in a thesis of up to 100,000 words. The areas covered by the Institute’s expertise cover a broad range of law, policy, and crime. 

The PhD School in Legal Sciences includes the following tracks:

The need for doctoral training for graduates in degrees related to the Social and Legal Sciences is defended both in the academic and professional fields, where the need to continue researching and advancing in knowledge, techniques and methods is confirmed, this training being doctoral the main way of training researchers.

Luiss, as part of the consortium of GEM PhD School (of which it is an effective member from 2010, together with 17 European and extra-European institutions) has been recently awarded funding for the activation of 3 out of 16 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Joint Doctoral Network (MSCA-JD) PhD positions in the framework of the European program Horizon Europe.

Area: Legal and Social Sciences

The PIDA is a postgraduate of high academic level, recognized by the National Postgraduate Program of Quality (PNPC) of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) as Consolidated Program. It emerged in an alliance of Universities of the Center-West Region, which, uniting their resources and competences, today offer a program that reaches the highest quality standards, which is decisively contributed by its Basic Academic Core, made up of twenty- academic training, high level of qualification and great experience in the field of research in Architecture.