Sandro Mendonça is Professor at the Department of Economics, ISCTE – Lisbon University Institute. He is also Invited Professor at ISEG - University of Lisbon and Visiting Professor at the Dept. of Economics of the University of Insubria, Italy. Prior to this he was lecturer at Nova SBE.

He is a German Marshall Fund Fellow since 2012. He was a visiting scholar of King’s College, London, in the Fall of 2012. In 2015 he was nominated “European Young Leader” by the Friends of Europe Foundation. He was faculty of SPRU, the University of Sussex, from 2016 to 2019. He taught and supervises at the doctoral programs of the Southern Medical University (Guanghzou) and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (Chengdu). He served as Director of the Economics undergraduate programme at ISCTE Business School (AACSB accredited) during two terms.

He was Scientific Manager of “Science and Society” at CYTED (the Ibero-American program for science and technology) from 2014 to 2018, and remained an advisor to the Secretary General. He cooperated with CEN (European Committee for Standardization) and EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Rights Office). He was member of the Management Committee of the He was member of the Management Committee of the COST Action A22, 2003-2007, of the Management Committee of the European Network for Conflict Research (ENCoRe), 2011-2016, and deputy member of the Management Committee of the  European Network on “Ocean Governance for Sustainability” (OceanGov), 2016-2020, sponsored by the European Science Foundation. From 2019 to 2023 he was delegate to the Network of Economic Regulators at the OECD.

His research and expert work mostly focuses on innovation and industrial policy. He is also active in the fields of economic history, strategic foresight and conflict research.

His research is cited in a number of scientific journals as well as academic textbooks, professional handbooks and official reports by international organisations, including the European Commission, the OCDE, several UN agencies and programmes (such as WIPO, UNIDO, IPCC), etc.

He holds editorial positions in the following academic journals: Foresight and STI Governance, Frontiers in Sustainability, Public Policy Portuguese Journal, and OBS*.

He has consulted extensively and internationally, both with the public sector and the industrial sector, as well as the “third sector”.

His work informed Portuguese standards (NP3355 and NP 4456) and European technical specifications (TC 389 WI 00389004 / TC 389 WG4 N 111 - prCEN TS 16555-3).

He has maintained a civic activity for a long time, most visibly in the media. In the past he held opinion columns in magazines like Macau Business magazine (the leading English language publication in Macau), Revista Macau (the Macau-based magazine on Far-Eastern and Portuguese-speaking affairs) and UP (once the on-board magazine of TAP, the Portuguese heritage carrier). He also held columns in a number of newspapers: Expresso (Portugal’s leading weekly newspaper), Público (Portugal’s reference daily newspaper), Diário de Notícias (the oldest mainstream daily paper), Diário Económico (the first Portuguese business newspaper) and Jornal Económico (the most-read Portuguese business newspaper) . He has appeared frequently as commentator at CNN Portugal, News Now, RTP3, SIC-N and TVI-24, cable news networks. On X-twitter he is @sfm_reg and can also be found on Linkedin. 

He was Executive Board Member (2018-2023) of ANACOM, the Portuguese communications authority with responsabilities for spectrum strategy and manangement, telecoms and postal supervision, submarine cables and outer-space economic activities, and emerging cybersecurity and digital economy challenges. Before, he was Executive Board Member (2008-2018) of Obercom, the Portuguese media watch, following technical, organisational and market developments in the media and new media sectors.

Sandro Mendonça is on academic leave from Iscte as of 2024. On this year he was a member of the advisory board of the monitoring unit of the Portuguese official national authority for cybersecurity (CNCS), a member of the governing body of Ceadi, the intelligence council of the Brazilian telecommunications regulator (Anatel), and an analyst with the Mexican-based DPL News, a media and research agency focusing on digital & telecoms in Latin America. Also on this year: he coordinated the study "The Futures of Big Tech in Europe" for DG Research of the European Commission, he was a Fellow Economist for DG Grow of the European Commission, and figured in the world scientists list of Stanford University.