{"id":37334,"date":"2026-03-05T14:33:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irpps.cnr.it\/maria-grasso\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T14:59:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T14:59:41","slug":"maria-grasso","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.irpps.cnr.it\/en\/maria-grasso\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Grasso"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Maria Grasso<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Research Director at the Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies (IRPPS).<\/div><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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She is Research Director at this Institute. Previously, she was Full Professor of Political Science and Political Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Politics and International Relations, School of Society and Environment, Queen Mary University of London since 2020. Before that, she was Full Professor of Politics and Quantitative Methods at the Department of Politics (now, the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations) at the University of Sheffield which she had joined as a Lecturer in 2011 before being promoted to Senior Lecturer and then to Full Professor in 2017.<\/p>

Maria holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) and a Master of Science in Sociology with Distinction from the University of Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall). She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2011 (Nuffield College). Her masters and doctoral studies at Oxford were funded by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) \u201c1+3\u201d Studentship; she was a Stipendiary Lecturer in Politics at St Hugh\u2019s College, University of Oxford (2008-2011) and Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton (2009-2011).<\/p>

She is European Editor of Mobilization<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and sits on the Advisory Board of\u00a0Acta Politica<\/em><\/a>. She completed her four-year term (2018-2023) on the Editorial Board of European Journal of Political Research<\/em><\/a> in 2023 and previously was an Associate Editor of European Societies<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2018-2021). She is the author of\u00a0Generations, Political Participation and Social Change in Western Europe<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Routledge, 2016) and co-author of\u00a0Street Citizens: Protest Politics and Social Movement Activism in the Age of Globalization<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>(Cambridge University Press, 2019), Living with Hard Times: Europeans in the Great Recession<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(ECPR Press, 2021), The Transformation of Protest Politics<\/a> <\/em>(Cambridge University Press, 2025), and Protest: A Very Short Introduction<\/em><\/a> (Oxford University Press, 2027).\u00a0<\/p>

Maria is regularly invited internationally to give keynotes and provide talks on her research and implications, review\/advise for a wide variety of international funding bodies, publishing companies, journals, Advisory Boards as well as participating in main disciplinary conferences. She has further edited a number of volumes and journal special issues and her work has been published in a variety of specialist journals including British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, European Political Science Review, International Political Science Review, Electoral Studies, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties, <\/em>European Journal of Politics and Gender,\u00a0 Government and Opposition, International Migration Review, Journal of European Public Policy, Politics, Party Politics, Journal of Youth Studies,<\/em>\u00a0Political Studies, Acta Politica, American Behavioral Scientist, Work, Employment, and Society, Mobilization, Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change<\/em>\u00a0and others.<\/p>

Maria\u2019s research focuses on political sociology, social change, social and political inequalities, political generations, social movements, youth politics, gender gaps and the shift from traditional means of political participation relating to parties, electoral politics and left-right conflict, to more diffuse and irregular forms of involvement such as demonstrations, consumer boycotts and issue campaigns. Her key research interests revolve around understanding the link between economic, social and political inequalities by looking at the political participation and political attitudes of different groups in terms of generation\/age, gender, class, relative deprivation, etc. and their intersections as well as the ways in which crises impact on different groups of citizens with respect to their economic conditions and perceptions, social capital, and their political (re)actions. Her academic work deals primarily with quantitative research and statistical analysis of cross-national surveys on political attitudes and behaviour and she has also supervised and directed several mixed-methods research projects.<\/p>

Maria has been awarded over c. \u20ac2.4 million (total grant income PI\/Co-I) in research funding to date, most recently as \u201cScientific Coordinator\u201d and work-package Principal Investigator on the Horizon Europe\/UKRI\/SERI-funded project DEMETRA<\/a> \u201cDemocratic Governance, Environmental and Climate Challenges, and Societal Transformation: Deliberation, Inclusiveness, and Citizen Empowerment for Sustainable Food Systems\u201d (c. \u20ac750,000 Queen Mary University of London part with Maria as PI; c. \u20ac2.4 mil. total for EU-funded consortium; c. \u20ac4 mil. total including UKRI\/SERI funding) which begun in May 2024.\u00a0 In April 2024 she completed an ESRC project on the impact of political humour on political attitudes and behaviours as Principal Investigator (1<\/a>,\u00a02<\/a>). Previously, she directed research and collaborated with other researchers on a number of other major European and UK grants including as Principal Investigator for the cross-national panel survey work-package on the collaborative EU project in the Horizon 2020 scheme:\u00a0EURYKA<\/a>, 2017-2020, on young people’s participation and inequalities, Principal Investigator for the cross-national survey work-package on the collaborative EU project in the Horizon 2020 scheme, TransSOL<\/a>, 2015-2018, on transnational solidarity in times of crisis, the collaborative EU project in the 7th Framework Programme, LIVEWHAT<\/a>, 2013-2016, on social resilience in times of crisis, and as Co-I on the Max Batley-funded project\u00a0<\/span>\u201cProtest as democratic practice: peace movements in southern Europe, 1975-1990\u201d<\/a>. <\/span>She was Research Fellow, 2009-2011, on the European Science Foundation collaborative European protest survey project\u00a0Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation<\/a>.<\/p>

Maria is regularly invited for media commentary on various global trends and her research has appeared in The Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph<\/em> among others. She has authored commissioned reports for The Government Office for Science and the Committee on Standards in Public Life and has been invited to write comment pieces for the LSE British Politics and Policy Blog and the Democratic Audit.<\/p>

Maria has supervised and mentored many research assistants and post-doctoral fellows through the years working on her funded research projects and she has supervised 12 PhD students to completion to date (8 as First Supervisor).<\/p>

At Queen Mary University of London:<\/p>