Carlos Catalão

Carlos Catalão Alves, PhD in Education, University of Cambridge, UK. A high school teacher until 1990, when he became head of the unit of Multimedia in the National Centre for Training of Trainers, Institute for Employment and Vocational Training, where he got actively involved in international projects. He was then invited as multimedia project manager for education and teacher training in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where he worked and lived until 1995. Back in Portugal, he was responsible for the unit of New Technologies for Education, at the Institute for Educational Innovation, Ministry of Education. In 1996 he joined the founding team of Ciência Viva as project director. He returned latter to Cambridge, in 2002, to learn Educational Research, at the Faculty of Education. In 2003, he was admitted at Darwin College, University of Cambridge, for a PhD in education. After 2007, he was appointed as chief of staff of the councillor for Education and Culture at the Lisbon City Council; and returned, two years later, to Ciência Viva to become, since then, a member of its board of directors. He teaches Science Communication and Education, in MPhil programmes at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and he is a research associate at the CIES, Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia, UL. His research is focused on the social mission of universities and scientific institutions, particularly in terms of its contribution to science education, as well as to public participation and engagement with science. He developed a practical body of knowledge and experience of policy–making and public governance of science, technology and education, having been a member of the office of the Minister of Science and Technology, with responsibilities in the studying and setting-up of science education nationwide projects.

More recently, over the past three years, he has been particularly engaged with RRI and Open Science frameworks, as well as with citizen and participatory science, and other forms of public participation in research agenda setting. This included the participation in RRI projects, such as RRI Tools FP7 project, where he was the european coordinator of emerging RRI hubs in several member states. Currently he is involved in governmental initiatives to promote the public engagement with the science sector, namely in the national participatory budget scheme for science, as well as in the fostering of public participation laboratories, where citizens put forward ideas for the regional and national research agendas.