ELISABETE FIGUEIREDO is a Sociologist (ISCTE – IUL) PhD in Environmental Sciences (University of Aveiro) with Habilitation in Sociology (FLUP). She is Associate Professor with Habilitation at the Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, University of Aveiro, Portugal. She is a full researcher at GOVCOPP (Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies) and a Collaborator at CESAM - entre for Environmental and Marine Studies, University of Aveiro. She is associate researcher of CETRAD – Research Unit of Transdisciplinary Studies for Development, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro. She was (from 2010 to 2011) Associate Researcher at the IBIMET - Rural Development Group - of the Italian National Research Council. She was Visiting Research Fellow of the ALTERRA - University of Wageningen, Netherlands (2009-2010), of IBIMET, Italy (2010-2011), of LADYSS - University of Paris I, CNRS, FRance (2016-2017) and of LAERS, University of Thessaloniki, Greece (2017-2018). 

Her main research interests are related to rural sociology and rural studies; environmental sociology; tourism studies and perception of risk.

She has been involved in several national, Spanish, French, Italian and EU-funded research projects, as Coordinator or member of the research team.

She is Expert/ evaluator of projects presented to several Calls of the H2020 EU programme. She was a member of the jury of the Gulbenkian Prizes - Knowledge, Cohesion, Sustainability (2018-2019) and she is currently a member of the Prize Young Researcher of the University of Beira Interior. 

Between 2015 and 2019 she was a member of the Executive Committee of ESRS – European Society for Rural Sociology. She is, since 2010, Co-Coordinator of the Environment & Society Section of the Portuguese Association of Sociology. She was, until June 2017 the President of SPER - Portuguese Society for Rural Studies and from that date onwards member of the Fiscal Council of SPER.

She is the author and co-author of more than 50 articles in international and national Journals; more than 60 chapters in international and national books and more than 200 national and international Conference papers. She is the co-author or co-editor of 14 international or national books.

She recently coordinated the research project STRINGS - Selling The Rural IN (urban) Gourmet Stores – establishing new liaisons between town and country through the sale and consumption of rural products (PTDC/GES-OUT/29281/2017/ POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029281) https://www.stringsproject.pt/

She currently coordinates the project ShareFOREST - Sharing decisions in forests – participatory methodology for public and stakeholder engagement in the - protection and valorisation of forests in Portugal (PCIF/GRF/0050/2019). https://shareforest.pt/

She currently co-coordinates the project ALICE - Air polLution: a stressor for environmental justICE (2022.04351.PTDC) - https://projeto-alice.web.ua.pt/