EU–Latin America Academic Synergies
Andrea C. Bianculli
EULAS Network Coordinator -Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)
Andrea C. Bianculli is an Associate Professor at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). Her research explores the intersections of governance, regulation, and development from a comparative, regional, and multilevel perspective, with a particular focus on Latin America and Europe.
Previously, she was an Assistant Professor and Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación Fellow at IBEI and held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Research College The Transformative Power of Europe at Freie Universität Berlin. She also worked as a researcher at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Argentina.
Andrea is the author of Negotiating Trade Liberalization in Argentina and Chile: When Policy Creates Politics (Routledge, 2017) and co-editor of Regional Organizations and Social Policy in Europe and Latin America: A Space for Social Citizenship? (Palgrave, 2016, with Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann) and Accountability and Regulatory Governance:
Audiences, Controls, and Responsibilities in the Politics of Regulation (Palgrave, 2015, with Xavier Fernández-i-Marín and Jacint Jordana). Her work has been published in leading academic journals, including Administration & Society, Global Public Health, Global Social Policy, Journal of European Social Policy, Politics and Governance, and Regulation & Governance.
She currently leads the project Rethinking the Fundamentals of Regions and Interregionalism: The European Union and Latin America through the Lenses of Regional Regulatory Governance (Reg-EULAC), examining the evolving dynamics of regional governance between the EU and Latin America.
She is currently the Project Coordinator of the LAC-EU doctoral network, ‘Understanding Latin American Challenges in the 21st Century’.
Henri Billard
(Université de Poitiers - Network Member)
Joaquin Henri Billard is a Lecturer at the University of Poitiers and a member of the CRLA-Archivos team (ITEM, UMR 8132 of CNRS/ENS/University of Poitiers). His research combines historical, sociological, and literary perspectives to explore Latin American societal transformations in the 1990s and 2000s, focusing on democratic transitions, legal and institutional reforms, neoliberal policies, and the emergence of new cultural and aesthetic movements in the context of globalization.
At the University of Poitiers, he plays an active role in academic leadership and international collaboration. He is responsible for developing international research projects within the CRLA-Archivos team and represents the laboratory at the Institute of the Americas (IDA). Additionally, he serves as a member of the Scientific Council of the UFR of Letters and Languages and Vice-President of the Scientific Expertise Commission for Romance and Other Languages.
In the field of education, he coordinates Spanish teaching for the Bachelor's program in Applied Foreign Languages (LEA) and the Professional Master’s program in Trilingual Negotiation in International Trade (NTCI). He also oversees ERASMUS exchanges with Spain and partnerships beyond Europe, particularly in Chile.
Beyond academia, he has contributed to educational assessment, serving as President of the BAC Jury for the South American zone in 2016 and 2017.
For more details, visit his profile on the ITEM website.
Sebastián Fuentes
CONICET and FLACSO, Argentina
Sebastián Fuentes is an Argentine anthropologist of education and a researcher at CONICET, based in the Education Area at FLACSO. Trained in philosophy and social sciences, he specializes in the sociocultural production of educational inequalities, with a particular focus on how these are shaped through public policy and lived experiences. His work brings together the study of education systems, social actors, and broader dynamics of inequality in contemporary societies.
Fuentes earned his PhD from IDAES/UNSAM, where he examined the relationship between education, sport, and solidaristic practices among elite groups in Buenos Aires. His research contributes to a relational understanding of elite formation, developed through his involvement in the NEEDS research group. He is also an active member of RIES, where he collaborates on projects related to secondary education in Argentina and the ways in which research knowledge is interpreted and used by different social actors.
In addition to his research, Fuentes has extensive teaching experience at secondary and university levels, as well as in teacher training programs.
He has led and contributed to national initiatives on comprehensive sex education, gender relations, and embodiment, working with Argentina’s Ministry of Education and the National Institute for Teacher Training. Since 2018, he has coordinated NEGESEC, a research and training hub focused on gender, education, and sexualities.
His work also extends internationally, including participation in the ERC-funded GLOBALSPORT project at the University of Amsterdam.
See Sebastián's latest research here.
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Adam Holesch
EULAS Network Project Manager -Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)
Adam Holesch is the Network Manager of the Jean Monnet Network, EU-VALUES, at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). His research focuses on European politics through the lens of multilevel governance, with particular attention to democratic backsliding, regionalism, and global governance.
He has been a visiting scholar at the European University Institute (EUI) in Fiesole, Central European University (CEU) in Budapest/Vienna, and Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada.
His work has been published in leading academic journals, including West European Politics, Journal of European Integration, Territory, Politics and Governance, Acta Politica, East European Politics, and Global Governance.
He is the Project Coordinator for the Network on Europe-Africa Relations - Education and Research (NEAR-ER). He is also a researcher and key contact person for the EU Research and Education Network on Europe in the World (EU-RENEW) and the EU-VALUES project, as well as a coordinator and researcher for Bridging the Gaps in Evidence, Regulation and Impact of Anti Corruption Policies (BRIDGEGAP).
Jacint Jordana is a Professor of Political Science and Administration at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and an ICREA Academia researcher. From 2004 to 2024, he served as Director of the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) and currently holds the position of President.
In addition to his roles at IBEI, he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Barcelona City Council, an Associate Researcher at the Sciences Po Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB).
His research focuses on comparative public policies from a multilevel perspective, with a particular emphasis on regulatory policies and their specialized institutions. His recent publications include Policy Analysis in Spain (Policy Press, 2022), co-edited with Laura Chaqués-Bonafont; Linguistic Claims and Political Conflicts (Routledge, 2021), co-authored with Andrea Bianculli and Mónica Ferrín; and Barcelona, Madrid y el Estado (Catarata, 2019).
Previously, he served as the academic coordinator of the European project GLOBE (Horizon 2020), which examined emerging trends and scenarios in global governance and the role of the European Union. He is currently the Network Coordinator of the Jean Monnet Network, EU-VALUES.
Jacint Jordana
EULAS Network Coordinator -Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI)
Carolina de Oliveira Salgado
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Carolina is an international relations scholar specializing in foreign policy analysis, global health, and contemporary political dynamics in Europe and Latin America. She holds a PhD in International Relations from PUC-Rio, during which she conducted four years of research at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg, and a Master’s degree from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). Her academic trajectory also includes two postdoctoral fellowships: one in international cooperation, funded by Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and another in the History of Science and Health at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz).
Carolina currently serves as Coordinator of Foreign Policy Analysis at the Brazilian International Relations Association (2023–2027), where she contributes to advancing research and debate on Brazil’s and other countries’ international engagements. She is actively involved in multiple research projects supported by both international funding, including the European Union, and Brazilian agencies such as Faperj.
Her research agenda explores the intersections between global health governance, the foreign policy of international organizations, and the rise of extremism and new right-wing movements across Europe and Latin America. She is particularly interested in how foreign policy operates as a form of public policy and how knowledge production in international relations intersects with issues such as epistemicide.
In addition to her research, Carolina teaches a wide range of courses in international relations, including foreign policy analysis, global health, and research methodology, and supervises students working on related topics.
Check out some of Carolina's latest work:
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The place of health in the EU-CELAC interregional cooperation from 2005 to 2023: a historical, empirical and prospective analysis. Global Health. 2024 Aug 1;20(1):60.
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Populist Radical Right & Illiberal Foreign Policymaking. Foreign Policy Analysis. 2023. Special Issue: New Directions For Foreign Policy Analysis 45 (2).
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Nicole Roberts
(Director, Centre for Language Learning (CLL) / The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine)
Nicole Roberts is a Senior Lecturer in Spanish at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine, and the Director of the Centre for Language Learning (CLL). With over a decade of experience in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, her research focuses on Afro-Hispanic literature, Hispanic poetry, Caribbean women writers, and issues of race and ethnicity in the Hispanic Caribbean. Additionally, she explores innovation in foreign language learning, particularly in reading and writing pedagogy.
Her work delves into race thinking and identity in the Afro-Hispanic Caribbean, with a particular emphasis on Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, as well as the literary contributions of Afro-Hispanic women writers. She is currently engaged in two book-length studies that further expand on these themes.
A global scholar, Dr. Roberts has lived, studied and worked in many countries, from Canada to the UK to Spain, before returning to her home country, Trinidad and Tobago. Her international experiences have deeply shaped her academic perspective and commitment to cross-cultural understanding in both literature and language education.
She is an active member of several academic organizations, including the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS), the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), and the Modern Languages Association (MLA).
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Who We Are:
Gender Equality Committee
At EULAS, we believe that academic excellence and meaningful international collaboration must go hand-in-hand with gender equality, diversity and inclusion. These values are not side elements of our network, they are fundamental to our design, our practices, and our impact.
To ensure gender perspectives are fully integrated across the project, a dedicated Gender Equality Committee (GEC) has been established. Formed during the inaugural Kick-Off Meeting, the GEC serves as an advisory and technical body to support all partners in embedding gender-sensitive approaches throughout their research, teaching, events, and institutional activities.