Strategic Advisory and Special Projects

The strategic advisory service provides direct support to the Board, assuming the coordination of projects across PlanAPP.

Biographical note

Filipa Vala holds a degree in Biology (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, 1995) and a Master (1997) and PhD (2001) in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Amsterdam (UvA). She was a researcher at the University College of London (UCL), the Gulbenkian Science Institute and the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (UvA), winning competitive international funding from the Royal Society (UK), and a Veni from NWO-WTO (NL), among others.
From 2006, Filipa focused on science communication, working on projects at the Ministry of Education and Science, the National Natural History and Science Museum, Lisbon City Council, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, among others. She tutored and supervised students, and taught undergraduate, Master and two advanced courses at UvA, UCL, and the University of Lisbon. She is an external member of cE3c (Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes).

Biographical note

José Vítor Malheiros is a consultant at PlanAPP – Competence Centre for Planning, Policy and Foresight in Public Administration and a member of the Board of the Faculty of Science and Technology – Nova University Lisbon.

He was a journalist for most of his professional life, being focused on the fields of Science, Technology, Education, Health and the Environment. He created and coordinated the first weekly Science section in Expresso (1983-1989), the first daily Science section in the journal Público (1989) and founded the website of the newspaper Público (1995).

He was executive director the Harvard Medical School-Portugal partnership and responsible for the ComLab unit of the UMIC-Agency for the Society of Knowledge. He was a member of the National Commission for the Registration of Electronic Health, the Regional Health Administration of Lisbon and Tagus Valley on the Future of Hospital Governance Working Group, the UNESCO National Commission on the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development advisory group, and co-rapporteur of the report “Contributions to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development in Portugal”.

For eight years he was a member of the board of eusja – European Union of Science Journalists’ Associations. He was a permanent consultant of Ciência Viva – National Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture, from 2013 to 2020, and founder of the Portuguese Association of Communication of Science – SciCom, and took part in its direction.

Biographical note

Maria Oliveira Fernandes graduated in International Relations from the School of Social and Political Sciences of the Technical University of Lisbon (1987 -1991), and has postgraduate diplomas in European Studies from the Catholic University of Portugal (1991-1992) and in European Law in Action from the European Institute of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (2011-2012), as well as the curricular part of the Master’s Degree in Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology from the School of Agronomy of the Technical University of Lisbon (1992 -1993).

Maria was Advisor in the Permanent Delegation of Portugal to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), responsible for the areas of Investment, Trade, Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment and Development Cooperation from 2016 to 2021. Previously, she was Head of Division of Business Sustainability, Head of Unit of Foreign Trade Policy and senior staff member at the General Directorate of Economic Activities of the Ministry of Economy (2011 -2016).

Maria began her career in the Ministry of Agriculture, where she specialized in international trade and multilateral agreements (1991 -1996). Between 1996 and 2011 she worked in the private sector, having been Secretary -General of the Portuguese Olive Oil Export Association (1996-2000) and Head of National Polices and Market Analysis at the International Olive Oil Council (2000-2001).

Biographical note

​Holder of a PhD in Economics from the University of Porto (UP). He is currently Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics at UP (FEP) and member of the Board of CEF.UP – Centro de Economia e Finanças at UP. His main research areas are economic growth, innovation and technological change, and industrial and company dynamics. He has published articles in several international academic journals, such as Economics Letters, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Macroeconomic Dynamics e Oxford Economic Papers.

As an academic consultant, he has participated in studies for various entities such as the Metropolitan Council of Porto, the Ministry of Finance, the Development and Cohesion Agency, the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation and the European Commission, among which are “Structural reforms in Justice and Education: a model-based assessment of macroeconomic impacts for Portugal”, for GPEARI-Ministry of Finance, “Improvement of national capacity to evaluate structural reforms and public policies and to analyse and forecast investment”, for the European Commission, “Crisis and recovery: two years of pandemic in the Portuguese economy”, for the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation and “Evaluation of the macroeconomic impact of Portugal 2020”, for the Agency for Development and Cohesion.

He was a member of the Working Group on External Debt Sustainability, appointed by the Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs (2016-2017), and one of the economists invited by the Prime Minister to analyse the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy and the subsequent crisis.