Maria José Sousa (PhD in Management, with Aggregation in Management and Public Management), is a lecturer and researcher at ISCTE/University Institute of Lisbon. She was Pro-Rector  between March 2022 and January 2024, and a member of the scientific committee of the PhD "in Law and Economics" (Cycle XXXIX), Università degli Studi del Molise. Is a member of the Advisory Board of Banco Português de Fomento for Public Policies.  She took a postdoctoral position from 2016-2018, researching the area of digital education, with several publications in journals with a high impact factor (Journal of Business Research, Journal of Grid Computing, Future Generation Computer Systems, and others). She worked as an expert in a European Commission project for the creation of a new category of digital skills to be integrated into the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS). She was also a member of the Coordinating Committee of the PhD in Management at the European University, a Senior Researcher at the GEE (Strategy and Studies Office) of the Ministry of Economy Portuguese, responsible for Innovation, Research and Entrepreneurship Policies, and Knowledge and Skills Manager at AMA, IP, Agency for Administrative Modernization (Ministry of the Presidency and the Council of Ministers) and a Project Manager at the Ministry of Labor and Employment, responsible for Innovation Projects and Qualification Assessment and Development Projects. Her research interests are currently in the public policies of Innovation and Research. She is the co-author of more than 180 scientific articles and book chapters (European Planning Studies, Information Systems Frontiers, Systems Research, and Behavioral Science, Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, and others). She is guest editor of more than 10 special editions of Elsevier and Springer. She was President of ISO/TC 260 – Human Resources Management, representing Portugal in ISO - International Organization for Standardization. She has coordinated several European innovation projects (funded by programs such as Erasmus+, Horizon Europe and ICMPD) and is also an External Expert of COST Association - European Cooperation in Science and Technology.