Pedro Adão e Silva (Lisboa, 1974). Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science and Public Policy at ISCTE-IUL. Diretor of the Ph.D. Program in Public Policy, he’s been lecturing at ISCTE-IUL since 2007, where he graduated in Sociology in 1997. Completed his Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence in 2009, with a dissertation on the Europeanisation of social policies. He was board member of CoLABOR (Collaborative Laboratory for Work, Employment and Social Protection) and is President of IPPS-IUL.

Helge Jörgens is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Policy of the ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and an Integrated Researcher at CIES-IUL – Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, in Lisbon Portugal. He holds a PhD from Freie Universität Berlin. From 2010 to 2016 he was tenured Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the Freie Universität Berlin and Managing Director of the Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU). His research interests include environmental, energy and climate policies, the role and influence of international public administrations, and the diffusion and transfer of public policies.

María Asensio is a Visiting Associate Professor at ISCTE-IUL, a researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL), and Principal Researcher at the National Institute of Administration (INA, I.P.). At ISCTE, she serves on the board of the Institute of Public and Social Policies (IPPS-IUL) and is a member of the scientific committees of the PhD programs in Public Policy and Public Administration. She also sits on the scientific committee of the Democracy and Political Representation Observatory. María holds a degree in Political Science and Sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid (1992) and a master’s degree in Social Sciences from the Juan March Institute (1994). She received her PhD in Political Science from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2001) and is a Doctoral Fellow of the Carlos III–Juan March Institute (IC3IJM). Throughout her career, María has taught at several universities, including the University of Coimbra (2001–2008), the University of Évora (2008–2011), ISCSP-UL (2011–2018), Universidade Aberta (2013–2016), and ISCTE (2010–2012, and since 2017). She has been involved in numerous international research projects, such as the NORFACE-funded project Healthdox: The Paradox of Health State Futures (2014–2018), and the DFG-funded project Political Economy of Social Policy Institutions (2001–2005). She coordinated the report CAF Challenges to Promote Public Sector Capacity under the Portuguese Presidency of the EU (EUPAN, 2021). Her research lies at the intersection of comparative political science and public policy. She is particularly interested in how theoretical models, institutional frameworks, and political preferences shape policy-making, as well as in the determinants of public opinion towards welfare systems. Beyond teaching and research, María actively contributes to the public debate on governance and social policy. She collaborates with public institutions and participates in expert forums to strengthen the link between academic research and policy design. Her work seeks to inform decision-making processes and to foster a better understanding of the challenges facing welfare states in Europe.

Tiago Fernandes (PhD European University Institute, Florence, 2009) is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE). He also directs the Varieties of Democracy Regional Center for Southern Europe and is a researcher at the Center for International Studies - ISCTE. He works on the politics of democracy, social movements and civil society, with a regional specialization on Southern Europe. Before coming to ISCTE, he was for twenty years in the faculty of Nova University of Lisbon, where he taught in the departments of sociology and political studies, was director of graduate studies and head of the department of political science and served in the directive board of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI).  Selected publications: Neither Dictatorship, Nor Revolution. The Liberal Wing and the End of the Portuguese Dictatorship, Lisbon, D. Quixote / Assembleia da República (2006); Civil Society, Democracy, and Inequality: Cross-Regional Comparisons (1970s-2010s), Special Issue, Comparative Politics (2017) (co-edited); Late neoliberalism and its discontents: Comparing crises and movements in the European periphery, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017 (co-authored); Memories and Movements. The Legacy of Democratic Transitions in Contemporary Anti-Austerity Protest, Oxford University Press, 2018 (co-authored); Forty-Five Years of Democracy in Portugal: Achievements and Prospects, Lisbon, Assembleia da República, 2020 (co-edited); Democratic Quality in Southern Europe: France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain, University of Notre Dame Press, Kellogg Series on Democracy and Development, 2024 (edited); and Portugal 1974-1975: Revolution, Counterrevolution, and Democracy, Lisbon, Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation, 2024. Together with Staffan Lindberg (Varieties of Democracy Institute - University of Gothenburg), he directs the project Varieties of Democracy in Southern Europe, which focuses on the causes and consequences of democratization in the region from the 1960s to the present and is funded by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation (https://www.v-dem.net/en/regional-centers/southern-europe/). He also coordinated the Portuguese team of the project Disobedient Democracy, led by Danijela Dolenec at the University of Zagreb and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, which looked at the causes and patterns of protest in the Southwest and Southeast regions of Europe (https://disdem.org/). He is also a non-resident fellow at the Center on Social Movement Studies (Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence). He was a visiting scholar at Princeton University, the Juan March Foundation (Madrid) and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame (USA) and is the recipient of the Gulbenkian Foundation award for the best article in the social sciences and the Best PhD Dissertation prize of the Portuguese Political Science Association. His current research focuses on the comparative analysis of civil society mobilization against authoritarian takeovers in 19th and early 20th centuries Southern Europe; the impact of social revolution on democracy and authoritarianism; and postcolonial transformations in lusophone Africa (with Olukunle Owolabi, Villanova University). Before starting his academic career, he took a BA in Sociology (minors in History and Philosophy) and an MPhil in Historical Sociology at Nova University of Lisbon and an MPhil in Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute (Florence). He also passed the national examinations for the diplomatic service at the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he briefly attended the attaché training course (1997).