Católica Lisbon Research Unit in Business and Economics: UID/00407/2025. Pluriannual 2025-2029

CATÓLICA-LISBON Research Unit in Business and Economics (CUBE) was created in 1997 to generate world-class impactful knowledge in Business and Economics. Since 1998, it has been classified as "Excellent" by FCT and, in FCT's last evaluation, in 2019, CUBE was awarded the highest classification of Portuguese research units in Management.

The 74 integrated CUBE researchers are organized in five research groups covering the principal areas of Business and Economics: Economics and Policy; Finance and Accounting; Marketing and Consumer Behavior; Operations and Data Science; and Strategy, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship. CUBE also develops a portfolio of centers of excellence to study specific cross-disciplinary themes of relevance to society. These centers combine academic research with industry partnerships, education and training.

A strong cadre of CUBE researchers recruited from the best business schools worldwide have become internationally recognized in their areas. They have been able to attract external funding, build corporate partnerships, and develop impactful outreach activities. They publish in and serve on editorial boards of top academic journals in their fields and hold leadership roles in scholarly communities. CUBE’s established reputation, robust research capabilities, and strong infrastructure make it a compelling hub in Lisbon for top-tier international research talent. This vision requires specific actions that CUBE is now implementing:

CUBE aims to become a regular host of international conferences and research seminars, and to attract senior researchers to Lisbon to serve as mentors to junior ones. CUBE will diversify external funding and strengthen its corporate research partnerships. CUBE will launch three PhD Programs (in Business, Economics, Finance) by 2025 to further grow its research environment.

CUBE will recruit 11 postdoctoral fellows to join its research groups, one assistant researcher through FCT Tenure CUBE Chair, and science managers to support CUBE management office and manage the PhD programs.

Reinforcing this strategy of establishing itself as a top European hub in Lisbon for Business and Economics research, CUBE will continue deepening the centers of excellence in the areas of Digital+Sustainable Innovation, Responsible Business and Leadership, Consumer Well-being & Retail Innovation, Economics for Prosperity, Social Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. In addition, we will launch a new Center for Sustainable Finance to address important societal challenges at the intersection of sustainability and finance.

The strategy for the 2025-2029 period thus aims to solidify CUBE's position as a top center for research excellence and societal impact in Business and Economics in Europe. With its distinct positioning, CUBE is poised to pursue this ambitious strategy and cultivate an ever more permanent and solid research team.