Maria da Graça Carvalho has recently be appointed Minister for Environment and Energy in Portugal. Until then she has served as Member of the European Parliament and has been Knowledge4Innovation chair during the last legislature.
In the European Parliament, she has been a full Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and a substitute Member on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and a substitute member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM).
She followed as well the parliamentary Delegations for relations with the United States, for relations with the countries of Central America and Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly. In the past, Maria da Graça Carvalho has also served as a member of the European Parliament in the EPP group from 2009-2014. She sat on the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee as a full member and was a substitute member of the Committee on Budgets.
In the Budget Committee, she acted during the 5 years as permanent EPP shadow rapporteur for the science and innovation budget and as rapporteur for the space budget. As an MEP, she was appointed rapporteur of the Specific Programme Implementing HORIZON 2020 and of the report on the Simplification of the Rules of Participation in the European Programs for Research and Innovation. In 2011, she was awarded the Prize for the best MEP in the area of Research and Innovation.
Maria da Graça Carvalho has been a Member of the Scientific Advice Mechanism Unit of the Directorate-General Research and Innovation of the European Commission from 2016 until 2019. She was a senior advisor to the Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation from November 2014 to December 2015.
She was Principal Adviser to the President of the European Commission in the areas of Science, Innovation, Energy, Environment, and Climate Change from 2006 to 2009. She was Minister of Science and Higher Education of the XV Constitutional Government and Minister of Science, Innovation and Higher Education of the XVI Constitutional Government of Portugal.
She is a Full Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico (University of Lisbon) and she has acquired 30 years of experience in research in the areas of energy, climate change, and science, technology, and innovation policy.
