Mafalda Dâmaso is an academic and independent consultant specialising in EU cultural and media policy. Currently, she is Principal Investigator for REBOOT, a Horizon Europe project at Erasmus University Rotterdam focused on developing policies to support the competitiveness of the European film industry. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute and a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London. Outside of academia, she is Senior Media Policy Advisor with the UK Coalition for Cultural Diversity and an expert affiliated with the European Commission’s Joint Research Center. Previously, among other roles, she was the lead author of policy recommendations for the European Parliament focused on strengthening the status of cultural workers across several policy arenas, the policy lead on the Preparatory Action Culture for Health, and led research for the University of Southern California on how the EU uses culture to support its foreign policy goals