The Tourism and Executive Secretarial courses were first created in 1964, and the Social Work course in 1992, at their respective Schools. Since it first started in 1974, the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology rounds off the range of courses offered at the Bilbao campus. The Language Centres, in turn, were first created in 1963 while, a decade later, the first Institutes were founded: the Basque Studies Institute in 1974 and that of European Studies in 1979. Later in 1988, the Institute of Leisure Studies began its activity and the Pedro Arrupe Human Rights Institute later in 1997.

Arts courses at the San Sebastian campus were first taught in the 1960-61 academic year. Between 1969 and 1991, they were dependent on the Faculty of Arts at the Bilbao campus, then as an independent Faculty, and as the Faculty of Humanities in the 1999-2000 academic year. The Schools of Tourism and Social Work joined the campus in 1964 and 2002, respectively, while the activities of the Language Centre date back to the 1962-63 academic year.

From the 2009-10 academic year, all these centres merged into one new project, the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences. Recognising and feeling all this legacy as their own, the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences was born to attract synergies and meet the new university challenges: building the European area, teaching innovation embodied in UD’s Education Model, the culture of quality, the search for a permanent and fluent dialogue with the environment around us, organisational innovation, continuing an internationalisation process in which we have made remarkable progress, and making knowledge generation and transfer more widespread.
 

The University of Deusto, in short, offers society:

• A scientific analysis of the changes of our times, from different perspectives.
• A project to train students (in their civic, professional, spiritual, scientific and intellectual dimensions) and prepare them to work in this world in constant change, and committed to its fairer and more balanced development.
• Scientific contributions to the improvement and development of this society.

The Faculty of Social and Human Sciences focuses on the different aspects of the impact that the transformation and processes of change in our world have on individuals, their lives and cultures; it also addresses the human face of globalisation, innovation, development and technological changes. This core idea is based on three main pillars, which give meaning to our training and research projects:

• Social Development, maintaining a commitment to training in areas of clear professional development, which are regarded as key by experts due to their contribution to the balanced and ongoing development of our environment: Tourism, Intervention and Social Work, and Communication. It also includes training and knowledge generation in specialist fields such as leisure studies or sociological analysis. It is, in short, a concern about cohesion and social inclusion, not about creating gaps in the adaptation to innovation processes, the search for a more human and balanced development, both socially and territorially.
• International and Intercultural Studies, in their dual role, focused both on preparing our society to act in a globalised world and on analysing and studying the impact of this phenomenon – and the challenges it involves – in our everyday life. We now focus our postgraduate courses in the field of Modern Languages and Management, and in International Relations and Studies (migrations, humanitarian aid, multiculturalism, multilingualism, political transformation).
• Humanism for the 21st century, for neither UD nor our society can neglect the intellectual training of people, or the specialist training of professionals able to provide critical, comprehensive views of our current social reality. It is the field of philosophical and historical thought, that is, of critical thinking.

• Communication Department (San Sebastian campus)
• Humanities and International Relations Department (Bilbao campus)
• Modern Languages and Basque Studies Department (Bilbao campus)
  - Modern Languages
  - Basque Studies
• Social Work and Sociology Department
  - Social Work (Bilbao campus)
  - Social Work (San Sebastian campus)
• Departamento de Turismo
  - Área de Turismo (campus de Bilbao)
  - Área de Turismo (campus de Donostia)

4 units that promote interdisciplinary research and knowledge transfer, continuing education, and postgraduate and doctoral projects related to their research lines.
- The Pedro Arrupe Institute of Human Rights
- Institute of Leisure Studies
- Institute of Basque Studies
- Centre for Applied Ethics

A Language Unit with four areas of specialist training:
- Centre for Modern Languages at the Bilbao Campus
- Centre for Modern Languages at the San Sebastian Campus
- International Spanish Centre - CIDE 
- Euskal Irakaslegoa (Basque Department)