Biography

Cristiano Gianolla is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra (UC), where he is vice-coordinator of the research thematic line on Democracy, Justice and Human Rights. He obtained a PhD in Sociology and Political Science (cum Laude, Coimbra and Rome-Sapienza) by way of a dissertation on Gandhi's democratic theory and a comparative study of emerging political parties in India and Italy. Cristiano is the Principal Investigator and Work Package leader of the project CO3 (Horizon Europe, 2024-2027, with Vanda Amaro Dias) and team member of the (d)e-HATE project (FCT, 2026-2027). He was the PI and WP leader of the projects PROTEMO (Horizon Europe, 2024-2025), PI of UNPOP (FCT, 2021-2025) and a team member of the ECHOES (Hotizon 2020, 2018-2021), ALICE (ERC, 2011-2016) and FRANET (2021-2022) projects. He is a co-founding and co-coordinating member of the 'Inter-Thematic group on Migrations', editor of e-cadernos scientific journal and a reviewer for scientific journals. Cristiano coordinates the PhD course 'Democratic Theories and Institutions' and the MA course 'Critical Intercultural Dialogue' at the Faculty of Economics of the UC, where he also teaches the module on democracy in the PhD course 'State, Democracy and Legal Pluralism'. His publishes on democratic theory, populism, emotion, narrative, post-colonialism, critical heritage studies, intercultural dialogue, citizenship and migrations.