Cátia Miriam Costa is a researcher in the Centre for International Studies (CEI-IUL) and an invited Assistant Professor at Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. She holds the Chair of “Global IberoAmerica” at the European Institute of International Studies (EIIS). Cátia also collaborates with the official think tank of the Ministry of Defence of the Portuguese Republic in the capacity of Invited Lecturer and Thesis Supervisor. She is also the alternate ISCTE representative in the  RTC-Portugal (consortium of Universities) - OceanTeacher Global Academy.

She is the General Coordinator of SBS4MED, an EU-funded Erasmus+ project promoting transformation through sport in the Mediterranean region, with a focus on skilling and entrepreneurship. She is also the Portuguese Team Coordinator at ESTEEM, an EU-funded Erasmus+ project promoting the development of management capabilities in very small enterprises. She is a member of COOPMAR (network supported by CYTED - The Iberian-American Program of Science and Technology for Development), which focuses on transatlantic cooperation, public policy, and Iberian-American sociocultural communities. She is a member of CHERN - China in Europe Research Network COST Action.

Her research has focused on inter-continental exchange phenomena (printed press, port cities, etc.), organizational innovations (think tanks, informational movements, etc.), ocean governance and globalisation. She has engaged extensively in knowledge transfer activities, including in the fields of real estate consultancy (sustainable planning), the third sector (project management), training (marketing management), and media activities (regular TV, newspapers, and radio appearances). Her current research agenda is driven toward the relationship between technology, the circulation of ideas, and international communication. Specializing in discourse analysis, she has studied deeply a set of non-European territories: the African, American, Asian cases both in a colonial and post-colonial context, the proto-nationalist and nationalist movements, and their relations with the former colonisers. She is also specifically interested in the construction of national discourses for the international sphere, and in the different perspectives on globalisation.

She has supervised Masters’s theses in a variety of programs at five major Portuguese academic institutions: ISCTE-IUL, ISEG-UL, ISCSP-UL, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, and the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Porto. Outside Portugal, she supervises Doctoral projects at the City University of Macau, China.

She was an advisor to the Secretary of State of Internationalisation (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) in the XXII Government of the Portuguese Republic. Her key responsibilities had to do with) high-level bilateral commissions, ii) trade policy and investment protection agreements, and iii) the diplomatic process of goods and services certification. Additionally, she was the liaison with a number of major policy initiatives in the domains of energy transition, digital transformation, and international seaport logistics. During her time in government, she undertook special strategic initiatives with a number of relevant markets (India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea) and she had to deal with a number of significant crises (the Pandemic impact in 2020, the Evergrande bottleneck in 2021, and Russo-Ukraine War in 2022).

She has cooperated with several research centres and networks in the areas of the social and political sciences. At the international level: CEIBA (centre for research on culture and development, Catalonia, Spain); “Ars, cultura Y Desarrollo” (organization for the register of orality, Valence, Spain), Kairos-Chairo (program Ibero-american of communities, languages and sustainable development), The Human Geography Research Group (Aberdeen University), “Appearance Matters” COST Action network (supported by the European Science Foundation), and “OceanGov” COST Action network (Ocean Governance for Sustainability – Challenges, Options and the Role of Science). At the Portuguese level: IICT (Tropical Research Institute), Centre of Iberian Studies, Centre of Peoples and Cultures Research  (Catholic University of Lisbon), International Institute Casa de Mateus (Higher Education network), CHAM (Centre for Global History, University of Lisbon), CEsA (Centre for African and Asian Studies, University of Lisbon). She has been involved in the organisation of international conferences and congresses in different scientific areas.

She has developed intensive teaching and training activities in Portugal and abroad in the context of several institutions: the European Foundation Centre, Asociación del profesorado de Portugués de Extemadura, INA (National Institute for Public Administration), the Portuguese Ministry of Justice, the Portuguese Supreme Audit Authority (Tribunal de Contas), SGS Portugal, ISCEM, among others.

She carried out managerial duties and performed expert functions in broad array of organisations. In the third sector: as a programme officer and projects manager she has developed educational projects for disadvantaged communities, and she also organised cultural events, developed sustainability interventions, etc., for different organisations including Fundação Oriente (Portugal) Institut Catalunya África (Spain), CaixaForum (Spain), Instituto Universitario de Desarrollo y Cooperación de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), the NGO CRIAR-T (Portugal), and OBERCOM (Communication Observatory) (Portugal). In the public sector she has worked directly with several entities: Institute Franco-Portugais, EGEAC (organization governing the cultural infrastructure in Lisbon), Municipality of Lisbon, Municipality of Setúbal, the Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture and Sea, and the Institute of Management of Citizens Shops. In the private sector: she has engaged with corporate actors such as INCM, CCIPD, and COTEC Portugal.

She has been a commentator for the mainstream media in the field of political science and international relations. She has featured in RTP3, SIC Notícias, TVI24, and Económico TV. She has been a columnist in the newspaper O Jornal Económico since its foundation in 2016 (previously she wrote for OJE between 2014 and 2016). She wrote invited pieces for the magazines Macau (Portuguese language) and Macao (English Language).