ISCTE was established in Lisbon in 1972 as
Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa using the faculty and facilities of the
Instituto de Estudos Sociais (Institute of Social Studies, founded in 1963) as a first step towards a new and innovative public university in Lisbon. Its present designation dates from 2009. In 1972, the first year of operation, 296 students matriculated at ISCTE: 219 in Economics, 66 in Business Administration (in Portuguese:
Organização e Gestão de Empresas) and 11 in Work Sciences (
Ciências do Trabalho). From its creation, ISCTE was authorised to grant the
bachelor's degree and the
licenciatura degree, which was higher than the current
Bologna process master's degree but still lower than a
doctorate degree. What was to be the first college of a never completed larger projected university (due to the
Carnation Revolution of 1974) always remained a non-integrated university college/institute. This situation was regularised in 1988, and from that date onwards, ISCTE grants all academic degrees, including
bachelor's,
master's and
PhD degrees,
honorary doctorate and
habilitation (called
Agregação in
Portuguese). In 2000, a university organisational framework design for ISCTE was published. ISCTE is today part of both the
Fundação das Universidades Portuguesas (Foundation of Portuguese Universities) and the
Conselho de Reitores das Universidades Portuguesas (Council of
Rectors of Portuguese Universities). It is also one of the few public university education institutions in Portugal with a
foundational nature, other examples being the
University of Porto,
University of Aveiro and
New University of Lisbon. It is known that, in 2002, the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities emitted the opinion that ISCTE should integrate the
University of Lisbon (1911–2013), and in 2012, the
University of Lisbon (before the merger with the
Technical University of Lisbon) invited ISCTE to become a part of the bigger University, but ISCTE turned down both invitations. ==Research units==