Virginia BRANCO has a MA in International Relations (culture and politics) from the Universidade do Minho (Portugal) and also a Research Master in Sociology : “Comparative Analysis of social change”, Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, Sciences-po Paris. She originally worked for one year at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies at Lisbon on the challenges of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. From 1999 to 2005, she was a Market Research Executive in charge of international studies for an institute for market research. Then, from 2005 to 2010, she occupied the position of contract officer for the CNRS regional office of EU and Industrial Liaison based at Gif-sur-Yvette (France), and consequently participated in the setting up, negotiation and development of numerous research projects in diverse scientific fields at the national, European and international level. She specialised in European projects and in intellectual property. Virginia joined REEDS in October 2010 responsible for international cooperation.