Our History doctorate programme falls within one of the most innovative lines of historiographic advance of the last two decades, World History or Global History, which can be classed as the most recent effort of our discipline to understand and interpret the dramatic changes shaking present-day society. Over the past ten years, this new area of specialisation has led to doctorate and master's programmes in leading American universities (University of Minnesota (1994), University of Hawaii (1995), Johns Hopkins University (1995), University of California at Santa Cruz (1995), New York State University (1996), University of California at Riverside (1997), Northeastern University (1997), Washington University (1998), University of Arizona (1998), etc.), extending to universities throughout the world from the beginning of the 21st century.
This is a programme that has no previous point of reference in Catalonia or in Spain, its fundamental lines of research being based either on segmentation into chronologically hermetic compartments -ancient, modern and contemporary history-, or on specialisation in preferred geographic areas of study or according to subject matter - economic, political, social or institutional history.
The proposal is viable because the major topics dealt with in World History coincide largely with the priority lines of research developed within the framework of the Institut Universitari d'Història Jaume Vicens Vives (Jaume Vicens Vives University Institute of History) (Humanities Department) over the last ten years: colonialism and post-colonialism, diaspora, history of the underprivileged classes or relations between Europe and the rest of the world.
In the same line of research, the Master in World History precedes this Doctorate.