The Catholic University of Portugal’s Institute for Political Studies Undergraduate Degrees in Political Science and International Relations, starting on September 4, seek to endow students with a solid scientific, theoretical and practical background, enabling them to launch their own companies, for example. However, the programs also clearly display a humanistic vocation, seeking to train competent professionals and specialists and, above all else, free and responsible citizens: "gentlemen" and "gentlewomen" as it might alternatively be expressed. This project is founded on the conception of social and political studies playing an essential role in university education, itself understood as education for excellence.