The Juan Linz Institute (IJL) is a University Institute for Research, based on the Getafe campus of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. The IJL was approved as an Institute in November 2025 by the Governing Council and the Social Council of the university.
Juan Linz was the most internationally renowned and widely recognized Spanish social scientist of the twentieth century. He earned his PhD at Columbia University (under the supervision of Seymour M. Lipset, the founder of contemporary political sociology) and spent most of his academic career at Yale University. He was awarded the Premio Principe de Asturias in 1987 and, in 1996, received the highest international distinction in Political Science, the Johan Skytte Prize from Uppsala University. He also received numerous honorary doctorates. His scholarly work spans many of the core questions of Political Science and Sociology, as evidenced by the seven volumes of his Selected Works, published by the Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales.
At present, the academic community of the Juan Linz Institute brings together leading social scientists in the fields of Political Science, Communication, Law, Economics, Statistics, Economic History, and Sociology, and is widely recognized as one of the most important social science institutions in Europe.
The Institute provides its members and visitors with a rich and stimulating research environment full of academic activities, such as weekly seminars, international academic meetings, and specialized methodological courses. This intellectual environment fosters high-level research output, reflected in the excellent publication record of its members and in the quality and quantity of national and international research projects hosted by the Institute. Institute members are also highly regarded for their public impact activities and external engagement.
In collaboration with the Department of Social Sciences, the Institute also trains future scholars through the Master’s in Social Sciences, a research-oriented master’s program that offers interdisciplinary training during the first year and a specialized track in the second year. Graduates of the program are admitted each year to highly prestigious international doctoral programs.
The Institute also hosts two professional master’s programs—the Master’s in Computational Social Sciences and the Master’s in Political and Electoral Analysis—both of which have an excellent track record in terms of career outcomes.
