The UB School of Sociology is the centre for research and postgraduate and executive education in sociology at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Barcelona.

Established in 1450, the University of Barcelona is the main public university in Catalonia, offering the widest and most complete range of subjects. Moreover, it is one of the largest research centres in Europe, both in terms of the research programmes offered and the level of excellence achieved in this field.

The UB School of Sociology, founded in 2019, brings together a long-standing tradition in academic training in sociology and various research activities of international standing. Its primary goal is to provide train:

  • professionals with critical skills for the study of change and social transformation processes;
  • research staff focused on the design and application of innovations for social projects in public or private organizations; and
  • scientific staff to study social change and the creation and evolution of social technologies that meet the requirements and provide new solutions to collective challenges.

Courses

The UB School of Sociology currently offers two official postgraduate programmes:
  • The master’s degree in Sociology, Social Transformations and Innovation complements the training currently offered in the bachelor’s degree in Sociology and provides graduates of several disciplines, including sociology, with a broader range of skills. Graduates of this master’s degree have a wide range of career opportunities and acquire the training required to access doctoral studies in sociology.
  • The doctoral programme in Sociology is adapted to the requirements of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and is a coherent set of training and research activities that lead to the attainment of a PhD. Its main goals are to train academic and research staff and elite professionals with the skills to direct institutional transformations and propose effective social innovations.

Research

The UB School of Sociology strives to be an attractive centre for research and academic activities in the field of sociology at the University of Barcelona: an international academic environment that fosters intellectual and scientific discussion.

The School is currently home to nine research groups. In the last five years, these groups have achieved significant research outcomes, both at national and European levels:

The UB School of Sociology strives to be an attractive centre for research and academic activities in the field of sociology at the University of Barcelona: an international academic environment that fosters intellectual and scientific discussion.

The School is currently home to nine research groups, all of them recognized by the Government of Catalonia. In the last five years, these groups have achieved significant research outcomes, both at national and European levels:

  • Direction of a project within the Ideas Programme of the European Research Foundation (TRAMOD) and of three other projects in the European Commission’s Framework Programme for Research (IMPACT-EV, of FP7, CULTURALBASE and SOLIDUS, of H2020) taking part as partners in a H2020 research project (PROTON) and a Marie Slodowska-Curie H2020 teaching staff exchange network (INCASI).
  • Direction of a HERA project of the European Science Foundation and participation in a KIC-Health EIT (CRISH).
  • Direction of 10 research, development and innovation projects under the Spanish government’s National Plan for Research.
  • In the last five years, the teaching staff of the Department of Sociology have published more than 400 scientific articles.

International recognition

The UB systematically ranks among the 25 best universities with more than 400 years of history. Moreover, it is the state leader in the main international ranking and the most innovative university in Spain.

The UB is a member of several international university networks, including the Coimbra Group and the League of European Research Universities (LERU), where the UB stands out as the only Spanish university.

The UB School of Sociology is committed to the pursuit of internationalization, with a master’s degree taught partly in English and the possibility of taking placements abroad, as well as offering collaboration agreements in master’s and doctoral programmes with European universities. It has also promoted the ISDUB initiative (International Sociological Debates at the UB) and hosted internationally renowned speakers such as Erik O. Wright, Michael Burawoy, Rima Rudd, Loïc Wacquant, Loraine Gelsthorpe, Ivor Chipkin and John Mohr.