Research Centres
APEM
The Portuguese Association for Music Education (APEM) is a cultural and professional association, non-profit and with public utility status, whose objective is the development and improvement of music education, both as an integral part of human development and social life, and as an essential component of specialized music training. APEM represents the interests of:
- music teachers;
- university professors and lecturers who conduct research in the field of music education;
- educators and teachers in the first cycle of basic education.
CESEM
The Centre for Music Studies (CESEM), formerly Centre for the Study of Sociology and Musical Aesthetics, is a research unit based in Lisbon at NOVA FCSH. It includes associated research teams at the University of Évora, the Polytechnic Institutes in Lisbon and Porto, and independent researchers working elsewhere.
CESEM was founded in 1997 by Mário Vieira de Carvalho and is dedicated to the study of Music and its correlations with other arts and the social and cultural fields. It addresses multiple approaches – namely sociological, aesthetic, historical, philological, compositional, pedagogical, therapeutic, and performative – and engages with the most recent perspectives and methodological trends in the Social and Human Sciences. The centre has achieved international recognition in all these areas through its published output’s high quality and innovative character and holds the classification of Excellent by the FCT. An interdisciplinary approach is favoured through five research groups, eight thematic lines and five laboratories.
Several research projects are financed through national and international programs such as CEEC, Marie Curie Actions, Erasmus+, and a few researchers are part of COST Actions. CESEM is part of IN2PAST, the Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability, and Territory.
The centre strives to guarantee a good working environment, promoting the integration of researchers at a human and scientific level, gender equality, and transparent evaluation mechanisms.
CIPEM
CIPEM (Center for Research in Music Psychology and Music Education), now CIPEM/INET-md, was created in September 1998 by the then Music Area of the Department of Arts and Human Motricity of the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, now the Technical-Scientific Unit of Music of ESE/P.Porto. It is a structure essentially geared towards promoting scientific research in the areas of Music Psychology, Music Education, and Music in the Community. As part of the 2015-2020 strategic project registration and evaluation process carried out by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for R&D centers in 2013, CIPEM became part of the Institute of Ethnomusicology - Music and Dance Studies, becoming a hub of INET-md at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto.
CITCEM
Founded in 2007, CITCEM – Transdisciplinary Research Center for Culture, Space and Memory is an R&D unit (n. 4059) based at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto (FLUP), funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology. (FCT) andbrings together researchers from previous research units.
CITCEM carries out research in an area of the Humanities and Social Sciences, promoting a multidimensional approach and awareness. Cooperation with other institutions is a strong pillar of CITCEM’s strategic plan, strengthening research networks in a scientific world without borders.
CITCEM is FLUP’s largest R&D Unit with more than 150 integrated members, serving as a dynamic nexus for master’s and doctoral students (60 FCT scholarship holders) and post-doctoral researchers enrolled in FLUP courses, associated with four departments.
INET-md
INESC TEC is a private, non-profit, Public Interest institution focused on scientific research, technology transfer, and innovation, bridging academia with the corporate world. It facilitates the translation of research into social and economic impact across several thematic domains and R&D centers.
Within this ecosystem, the Laboratory of Sound and Music Computing focuses on promoting understanding, interaction, expression, and immersion through digital media. Based at the FEUP Campus in Porto, the lab hosts researchers from the Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia and the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. Their work explores disciplines like Music Information Retrieval, automatic music generation, immersive 3D audio spatialization, and music robotics. Armed with specialized hardware like modular synthesizers and advanced acoustic production spaces, the lab creates technologies that bridge engineering, signal processing, and creative expression.
INET-md
The Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md) is a research unit grounded in the integration of the arts, humanities, and sciences. Founded in 1995, INET-md has since invested in partnerships with communities, artists, academic and non-academic institutions, and public policy makers, with the aim of fostering the democratic and decolonial construction of knowledge.
INET-md’s contributions include innovative ethnographic and historical work on the expressive practices of music and dance; studies on their manifestation and preservation; attention to political implications and global interconnections; explorations of dance and music as embodied social practices; the study of formal and non-formal pedagogical approaches in these fields; experimentation in artistic research; and the acoustic characterisation of musical instruments. Based at NOVA University Lisbon (NOVA FCSH), INET-md has three additional branches located at the University of Aveiro (DeCA UA), the University of Lisbon (FMH-ULisboa), and the Polytechnic of Porto (ESE-P.Porto), as well as a branch currently being established at the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon (IPL).
INET-md Website
