Rui Pena Pires is a professor at ISCTE-IUL, where he completed his BA, MC, and PhD in Sociology, and is a researcher at CIES-IUL. He has been the scientific coordinator of the Portuguese Emigration Observatory (Observatório da Emigração) since 2009. Formerly, he was the head of the Department of Sociology and Pro-Vice-Rector at ISCTE-IUL. From 2007 to 2010 he was a member of the Management Board of the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of the European Union (EU). His research interests include sociological theory, international migration and sociology of development. He is author of several publications, including the book Migrações e Integração: Teoria e Aplicações à Sociedade Portuguesa (Migration and Integration: Theory and Applications to the Study of Portuguese Society) (Celta 2003) and Atlas da Emigração Portuguesa (Atlas of Portuguese Emigration) (Mundos Sociais, 2023).