The main scientific research area is sociology, with a focus in social inequalities (gender, class and ethnical) in rural and urban contexts. The researcher was (i) co-coordinator in a project about Prostitution in border areas of north of Portugal and Spain (finished in Januari 2005) approved and sponsored by Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT); (ii) coordinator of the project "From Racism and Xenophobia to Multiculturalism: A Study of the Minorities of African Origin and of Gypsies in the District of Braga" (finished in December 2006) approved and sponsored by FCT; (iii) coordinator of the project "Gender (in)equalities in work and private life: from the norms to social practices" (PTDC/SDE/72257/2006), (finish in June 2011), approved and sponsored by FCT; (iv) coordinator and responsible of the project "Ways of Life and Modes of Inhabiting: Social Housing in Poor Neighbourhoods in Oporto and Braga" approved and sponsored by FCT (PTDC/IVC-SOC/4243/2014) (ongoing). At collective level, as Director of Research Centre for Social Sciences - CICS (2004-2014) (with Helena Machado as Vice-Director) was coordinator of Research Project of the Centre, namely in the preparation of the Project of the CICS for two evaluations of the Centre: first in 2008 and 2011 with classification of Good and in 2013 (with the fusion with the Centre of Social Studies and the E-Geo from the New University of Lisbon) as Interdisciplinair Centre of Social Sciences with the classification of Very Good.