Contributors

EurAfrican 2023

Maria da Graça Carvalho

Member of the European Parliament Portugal

Maria da Graça Carvalho is currently a member of the European Parliament in the European People’s Party (EPP). She is a full member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), where she was elected vice-coordinator of the EPP Group and of the Committee on Fisheries (PECH), of which she was elected vice (PECH), where she was elected Vice-Chairwoman. She is a substitute member of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) and a full member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) and of the Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in the Digital Age Digital Age (AIDA). She is also a full member of the Delegation for relations with Relations with the United States of America.

 She is a substitute member of the Delegation for relations with the countries of Central America, the Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly and in the Delegation for relations with the countries of Central Asia. Maria da Graça Carvalho is also President of the Board of Institute Francisco Sá Carneiro (since July 2020). 

 Maria da Graça Carvalho was a member of the European Parliament in the EPP Group group from 2009 to 2014. As an MEP, she was appointed rapporteur for the HORIZON 2020 Specific Implementation Programme. In 2011, she received the Award for best MEP in the area of Science and Innovation. 

Maria da Graça Carvalho was a member of the Unit “Mechanism for Scientific Advisory Mechanism” of DG Science and Innovation of the European Commission. Previously she was Advisor to the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, as well as Chief Advisor to the President of the European Commission, responsible for science higher education, innovation, energy, environment and climate change. 

She was Minister of Science and Higher Education in the XV Constitutional Government of Portugal and Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education in the XVI Constitutional Government, and Director General of GRICES – Office of International Relations for Science and Higher Education. 

Maria da Graça Carvalho is a Full Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, and has 30 years of experience in the areas of energy, climate change and science, technology and innovation policy. 

She was a member of the Board of Directors and President of the Scientific Council of Instituto Superior Técnico, besides being a member of the National Council for Education and the National Council for Environment and Sustainable Development. 

She was the founder of a 50-person scientific research group entitled Energy and Sustainable Development at the Instituto Superior Técnico. She has published more than 100 articles in international scientific journals and more than 200 papers in conference proceedings, besides writing four and editing 17 others. 

She founded and was the first editor-in-chief of “Ar Limpo – Jornal International, Journal of Environmental Combustion Technologies (Gordon and Breach Publishers / Taylor & Francis). She has coordinated more than 20 European consortia and served as chair in several international panels, such as the Assessment Evaluation Panel of the “Fuel Economy Panel” (Gordon and Breach Publishers / Taylor & Francis).

She received in 2016, the Global Leadership and Service Award from the IUMRS 

The International Union of Materials Research Societies, which honours individuals in the field of science, education and science policy, and received the first Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo Award, a career award to honour women scientists and engineers in honour of former Portuguese Prime Minister Maria da Lourdes Pintasilgo. In 2008, as part of the commemoration of the XV anniversary of the CIRCE Foundation (University of Zaragoza), Maria da Graça Carvalho received the CIRCE AWARD.

Maria da Graça Carvalho is a member of 22 national and international scientific associations and international and member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) and the Academia Europaea. She was Vice-President of the Portuguese Order of Engineers, member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, of the Royal Academy of Engineers of Spain and founder of the Portuguese Academy of Engineering (she is member number 2).

 Maria da Graça Carvalho received the title of “Grand Officer of the Order of Public Instruction” by the President of the Republic of Portugal. She received, on 26 on April 26, 2005, the Grand Cross of the Chancellery of the International Order of Merit of the Discoverer of Brazil.

 She is a member of the Chancellery of the Orders of Merit of the Portuguese Republic.