The chosen lines of research are characterized by thematic axes around which the research works, elective disciplines of the curriculum and extension projects with common objects of systematic interest of the Program are gathered.

I. Management, Organizations and Development Policies

This line of research encompasses, at the macro level, studies on local and regional public policies, both for basic services and for specific development actions, analyzing their diagnoses, their implementation and the evaluation of their effectiveness. Addresses, in parallel, in the micro plan, the management processes of organizations, deployed to meet their strategic objectives, investigating the issues of sustainability, technological innovation, knowledge management and organizational development that influence the productive and organizational processes. And investigates the articulation between these two plans, understanding each of them as context and condition for the other.

II. Training and Development Processes

Education, in its broad sense, in the formal and non-formal aspects, has always been one of the pillars of every process of development and modernization. The so-called civilizing process passed and necessarily passes through education. Thus, the objective of this line is to research the theoretical and practical dimensions related to training processes in general, oriented to the development and reduction of social, economic, political and cultural inequalities. To this end, the processes of identity construction, both individual and collective, the processes of professionalization and identity at work, the working conditions and their consequences for the worker will be considered, public and business policies for education and training for work. At the same time, development is understood beyond an exclusively economic perspective, research will include the relationships between education and citizenship and, in particular, between education and diversity (gender, ethnicity, social class, generational). This line of research seeks an interdisciplinary approach involving psychosocial, educational and sociology of work perspectives. Empirical studies in this line are characterized by a combination of techniques (database research, in-depth interviews, written documents, questionnaires, focus groups) associating quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis instruments.