Biography

Lorenzo Cicchi (PhD IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, 2013) is Co-director of the European Governance and Politics Programme (EGPP) at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.

He is also a senior lecturer at California State University in Florence. A comparative political scientist specialising in European politics, he has research interests in European Union institutions and elections, political parties and party systems, voting advice applications, and affective polarisation. He has published several monographs, and his articles appear in leading journals, including the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Common Market Studies, Acta Politica, the European Political Science Review, and the Journal of Contemporary European Studies.

Research projects, clusters and working groups

Ongoing

• Polarisation versus Democracy: Informing the Hungarian electorate to reduce affective polarisation and foster democratic attitudes
• Resisting InterScalar Authoritarian Networks and Coalitions

Completed

• European elections mobilisation and participation hub 2024 (EUROHUB24)
• Helping mobile EU citizens to exercise their political rights in European Parliamentary Elections 2019
• Narrating COVID-19: how Europe as Union fares
• Differentiation: clustering excellence
• European Parliament political groups and European integration
• Informing voters, reducing affective polarisation: an experimental informative hub for the 2025 Polish presidential elections
• Integrating diversity in the European Union
• Rebuilding governance and resilience out of the pandemic
• Renovating representative democracy
• European Union studies Working Group

Recent research output

• CICCHI, Lorenzo; BARDI, Luciano; CALOSSI, Enrico; MASI, Beniamino (2026), Measuring political representation in Italy : a VAA-based analysis of the 2022 election, Article
• CICCHI, Lorenzo; REILJAN, Andres; CANALEJO MOLERO, Álvaro; FERREIRA DA SILVA, Frederico; GARZIA, Diego; TRECHSEL, Alexander H.; FISELIER, Toine Antonius Gerhardus (2026), EU&I 2024 party and user dataset, Dataset
• CANALEJO MOLERO, Álvaro; CICCHI, Lorenzo; FERREIRA DA SILVA, Frederico; GARZIA, Diego; REILJAN, Andres; TRECHSEL, Alexander H. (2026), Priming common European and democratic values does not reduce affective polarization, Article
• HEMERIJCK, Anton; GENSCHEL, Philipp; STOLLE, Dietlind; CICCHI, Lorenzo; RUSSO, Luís; NASR, Mohamed; SCHELKLE, Waltraud; KRIESI, Hanspeter; OANA, Ioana-Elena; MOISE, Alexandru Daniel; KOVAREK, Dániel; TRUCHLEWSKI, Zbigniew (2026), EUI-YouGov SiE survey on solidarity in Europe : trendfile and yearly datasets, Dataset
• CICCHI, Lorenzo; CARAMANI, Daniele (2025), The Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on political cleavages in Europe : lessons learned and policy recommendations for democratic resilience, Other
• FRANCESCA, Martina; FEISEL, Franca Maria; CICCHI, Lorenzo (2024), National mini-public report : Italy, Technical Report