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Professor Maria Grasso, BA (Hons) (Oxon), MSc (Oxon), DPhil (Oxon)

Maria

Professor of Political Science and Political Sociology

Email: m.grasso@qmul.ac.uk
Office Hours: on research leave

Profile

Maria Grasso joined the School of Politics and International Relations and Queen Mary University of London as Professor of Political Science and Political Sociology in 2020. Previously, she was Professor of Politics and Quantitative Methods at the Department of Politics of the University of Sheffield which she had joined as a Lecturer in 2011 before being promoted to Senior Lecturer and then to Chair in 2017. Maria holds a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) and an MSc in Sociology with Distinction from the University of Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall). She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in June 2011 (Nuffield College). Her doctoral research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC); she was a Stipendiary Lecturer in Politics at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford (2008-2011) and Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton (2009-2011).

Maria is European Editor of Mobilization and sits on the Advisory Board of Acta Politica. She recently completed her four-year term (2018-2023) on the Editorial Board of European Journal of Political Research and previously was an Associate Editor of European Societies (2018-2021). She is the author of Generations, Political Participation and Social Change in Western Europe (Routledge, 2016) and Street Citizens: Protest Politics and Social Movement Activism in the Age of Globalization (Cambridge University Press, 2019, with Marco Giugni) and Living with Hard Times: Europeans in the Great Recession (ECPR Press, 2021, with Marco Giugni). She has further edited a number of volumes and journal special issues and her work has been published in a variety of specialist journals including British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, European Political Science Review, International Political Science Review, Electoral Studies, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties, Political Studies, Acta Politica, American Behavioral Scientist, Work, Employment, and Society, Mobilization, Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change and others.

Maria has been awarded over c. €2.4 million (total grant income PI/Co-I) in research funding to date and is "Scientific Coordinator" on the Horizon Europe/UKRI/SERI-funded project DEMETRA “Democratic Governance, Environmental and Climate Challenges, and Societal Transformation: Deliberation, Inclusiveness, and Citizen Empowerment for Sustainable Food Systems” (c. €750,000 Prof Grasso; c. €2.4 mil. EU-funded consortium; c. €4 mil. with UKRI/SERI funding) running from May 2024-October 2027. In April 2024 she completed an ESRC project on the impact of political humour on political attitudes and behaviours as Principal Investigator (1, 2).

Previously, she directed research and collaborated with other researchers on a number of other major European and UK grants including as Principal Investigator for the cross-national panel survey work-package on the collaborative EU project in the Horizon 2020 scheme: EURYKA, 2017-2020, on young people's participation and inequalities (Twitter), Principal Investigator for the cross-national survey work-package on the collaborative EU project in the Horizon 2020 scheme, TransSOL, 2015-2018, on transnational solidarity in times of crisis (Twitter), the collaborative EU project in the 7th Framework Programme, LIVEWHAT, 2013-2016, on social resilience in times of crisis (Twitter), and as Co-I on the Max Batley-funded project "Protest as democratic practice: peace movements in southern Europe, 1975-1990”. She was Research Fellow, 2009-2011, on the European Science Foundation collaborative European protest survey project Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation.

Maria’s research has appeared in The Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph among others and she has advised the British Correspondent for The Economist on debates surrounding protest politics. She has authored commissioned reports for The Government Office for Science and the Committee on Standards in Public Life and has been invited to write comment pieces for the LSE British Politics and Policy Blog and the Democratic Audit.

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