The Political Observatory represents 220 members, more than 80 researchers, between PhD and associates constitute an extended scientific body. Together they are a large group of researchers, interested and curious in the field of political science, who aim to contribute to the development of political study and national and international political analysis.
By the initiative of Cristina Montalvão Sarmento, along with 70 students of Political Science and International Relations, it was created in 2009 by the Scientific Board of FCSH – Universidade Nova de Lisboa and, since then, in 2010, became autonomous, constituting itself as an non-profit association of scientific research in political studies, gaining autonomy and asserting itself in the civil society as a research center of excellence.
Independent of party-political structures, political power, and sovereign entities, the Political Observatory has been committed to the sustainable development of a platform for study, analysis, and research dedicated to politics, devoting greater cooperation with society and the media, besides the science technology services.
From all activities, in the genesis of the Political Observatory, we highlight the creation, registration, and edition of the scientific journal of reflection and debate, the RPCP – Portuguese Journal of Political Science. Now, already with 13 numbers published and two others in preparation in the course of 2021, with biannual frequency, the RPCP complies with the referencing standards of the Latindex Catalog – System of International Information for Scientific Journals, the (ERIH) European Reference Index for the Humanities of the European Science Foundation (ESF), Qualis (B4) – the system of classification for science production by CAPES, of the Brazilian Ministry of Education and SciELO Portugal.
The Political Observatory’s research activity also allowed the updating and renewal of the well-known ResPublica, a generalized system on information network in political science issues, from the scientific authorship of Professor José Adelino Maltez, donated to the Political Observatory, in October 2011 which was renewed as POLITIPEDIA- Portuguese Repository of Political Science.
This database is the most extensive collection of compiled information, covering about eight thousand (8000) entries in the field of Political Science, more than twelve thousand (12000) files and the encyclopedic dome of a Portuguese Repository of Political Science. About two hundred (200) bibliographic keys on subjects of Political Science and International Relations, an important database of elections in Portugal since 1820, hundreds of biographies of the Portuguese political class, constitutes a valuable scientific heritage of the Political Observatory.
In January 2016, by agreement between the Institute of Social and Political Science (ISCSP) and the Political Observatory, it became part of the group of laboratories and observatories of the ISCSP – ULisboa, which constitute the repository and potential for the majority of political studies in Portugal.
