Prof. Carlos Mendez is a co-Director at the EPRC. He was educated at University College London (BA), London School of Economics (MSc) and Strathclyde (PhD). As a specialist on the European Union and regional development policy, Carlos’ main research interests include EU Cohesion Policy, the EU Budget, and regional policy in Portugal and Spain. He has co-authored a monograph on EU Cohesion policy, published a wide range of academic articles and policy reports, and worked on research projects and evaluation studies for European, national and regional institutions.

More recently, Carlos is leading a new research stream at the EPRC on citizen engagement and communication. The research is underpinned by two major Horizon 2020 projects (COHESIFY, DEMOTEC) funded by the European Commission on the impact of Cohesion Policy on European identity and on democratic innovations respectively, as well studies for the European Parliament (VISIBILITY, LINGO) on EU communication in the public sphere. Carlos has been collaborating with a multidisciplinary team of academic experts across the EU to apply innovative techniques including computational text analysis and framing analysis of online media, focus groups and surveys of citizens, as well as interview-informed case studies of the effectiveness of strategies to improve EU communication.