Biography
Mafalda Dâmaso is a part-time Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute, where she serves as work package leader in two Horizon Europe projects (2025–2028): ANIMA MUNDI, which understands the European animation industry ecosystem as a value-laden sector with untapped geopolitical potential, and StreamSCAPES, which examines how the cultural and creative industries can support the sustainable climate transition, with a particular emphasis on video-on-demand platforms. She is also a Researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where she is the Principal Investigator of another Horizon Europe project, REBOOT, which focuses on the competitiveness of the European film industry (2023–2026). In total, she has contributed to successful grant applications amounting to €11.5 million.
Her research interests include cultural and media policy, cultural diplomacy and relations, the geopolitics of culture, and culture in sustainable development. Her work primarily focuses on the European Union and its external action.
She has held academic positions at King’s College London, Goldsmiths, University of London, the Catholic University of Paris, the University of the Arts London, and the Centre on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, where she led empirical research on the EU’s approach to culture in foreign affairs.
Her work has appeared in leading publications in the field, including the International Journal of Cultural Policy, the Journal of Arts and International Affairs, and the Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy. She is a member of the editorial board of Cultural Trends, the editor of The European Union as a Global Cultural Power (De Gruyter, forthcoming in 2025), and co-editor of Towards a Regenerative Cultural Policy, a special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Policy (with Bethany Rex, forthcoming in 2025).
Her research has been cited in documents by and for the European Parliament, the European Council, and the European Commission. She addressed the European Parliament’s CULT Committee in 2024 (reflecting on the future of EU cultural diplomacy) and in 2021 (on the status of cultural workers).
Beyond academia, Mafalda Dâmaso led with Cultural Action Europe research and policy recommendations to support the European Parliament’s work on the status of artists and cultural workers. She was also the EU policy expert for the consortium Culture For Health, funded by the European Commission. Her previous collaborations include work with the Joint Research Centre, the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies.
She regularly advises sectoral, national, and European organisations on EU cultural and media policy and diplomacy. She is a member of the European Expert Network on Culture, which provides high-level, independent expertise on cultural policies (including those related to the cultural and creative sectors and industries), a member of the management committee of ICRRA (the International Cultural Relations Research Alliance, a network co-convened by the British Council and the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations), an Associate Fellow of the British Foreign Policy Group, a member of the UK Council of Creative UK, Senior Media Policy Advisor to the UK Coalition for Cultural Diversity, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, and a Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Academy.