Prof. Carlos Mendez is a Director at the EPRC and Head of Centre. 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 Europe. He has authored a wide range of 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 funded by the European Commission, as well studies for the European Parliament 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.