Biography

Sergio Acuña Lorenzo is a graduate in political science and holder of a master's degree in marketing and political communication technologies from the University of Santiago de Compostela. He is currently a pre-doctoral researcher for the Regional Government of Galicia in the political research team at the University of Santiago de Compostela.

His lines of research range from political communication and the study of digital election campaigns and social media to the evaluation of public policies on sustainable mobility, European integration, and policy learning.

He is currently working on a doctoral thesis that analyses the impact of the local sustainable urban policy ‘Vigo Vertical’ on urban mobility and quality of life. This work explores how institutional stability (with the same local government since 2007) and multi-level governance facilitate access to EU funds (ERDF and NextGenerationEU), and how political loyalty acts as a "partisan filter" in the citizen evaluation of public infrastructure.

As a Visiting Fellow, he is particularly interested in how local governments develop policy transformations through the policy learning and Europeanisation process; and the role of Structural Funds in legitimizing local projects. During his stay, he aims to refine his analytical model on the use of evidence in governance and the impact of urban transformation on citizen well-being.

Fields of expertise