The Institute of Sociology is the host institution for PhD projects with grants financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), as part of several national and international PhD programmes in Sociology and/or other Social Sciences, one of which is the PhD Programme in Sociology of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (FLUP).

IS-UP offers a multidisciplinary environment for students to pursue their intellectual interests in different arenas. Through IS-UP and its host institution, FLUP, research students have access to an extensive collection of resources, including on-site and off-site library collections, that guarantee access to all relevant journals in the broad spectrum of the Social Sciences, as well as to data archives from national and international sources. In view of securing all researchers have appropriate working conditions, IS-UP makes available a dedicated research room for PhD students with individual working stations, together with some complementary facilities. IS-UP takes pride in providing all its researchers with a research environment where intellectual freedom and sociological innovation are core principles. Through coursework, workshops, research assistantships and teaching assistantships, students work closely with faculty members to develop research skills and experience in the substantive areas of sociology.