The main aims of the social history program are as follows:

• The training of high-level expert researchers in the field of history;
• The training of teachers-researchers to work in universities in Brazil and abroad;
• The strengthening of the Brazilian historiographical tradition, rooted in solid theoretical, methodological foundations and scholarship;
• The search for new themes and historical research fields, without losing the quality that has defined the program since its inception;
• Intervention in the Brazilian and international historiographical debate through the intellectual production of the teaching staff and students.