Joo Pedroso is a legal scholar and sociologist of law. He holds a Law degree (1983), a Masters (2002) and Doctorate (2013) in Sociology of the State, Law and Administration from the University of Coimbra. He has held academic appointments as an Assistant Professor at ISCTE (1990/1991) and FEUC (Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, 1991-2013). He was appointed Associate Professor in 2013 (with permanent tenure since 2017) at FEUC, and is the current coordinator of the doctoral programme “Sociology of the State, Law and Justice” (FEUC/CES). Research affiliations include: Associate (1992-1995) and permanent researcher (since 1995) at the Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra; Member of the Centre for Cooperative Studies and Social Economy (since 2013); Member of the Family Law Centre at FDUC (since 1999. He has been an Elected member of the Representative Assembly and Board of the Faculty of Law, University of Coimbra (1982/1983) and a Board member of CES (2002-2003). He is Co-coordinator of the doctoral programme “Law, Justice and Citizenship in the 21st Century” (FDUC/FEUC/CES, since 2015) and Coordinator of FEUC’s Law Unit (2014-2018). Joo has received a number of Honours and grants, most notably a Council of Europe Scholarship (1986), the Gulbenkian Prize in Social Sciences (team award, CES, 1996), an Erasmus Scholarship at Sciences Po Paris (1995), and has been Principal Investigator for six FCT-funded research projects (2008-2022). He has held Visiting Positions in France: Sciences Po Toulouse (2017), Spain: International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Oati (2008), Brazil: NEV, University of So Paulo (1996), and Mozambique: CEA-UEM (1996-1999) and CFJJ (2003-2004, 2017-2019). In Public Service Joo has been an Elected member of Portugal’s Superior Council of the Judiciary by Parliament (2003-2005), aMember of the Consultative Council on Justice (2001), a Researcher at INA (2001), Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister (2001-2002), an Advisor and Chief of Staff to the Minister of Labour and Solidarity (1996-2000), Chair of the Installation Committee for the Social Security Institute (1999-2001), Chair of the National Commission for Children at Risk (1998-2001), and a Contributor to major legislative reforms (e.g. Social Security Framework Law, Child Protection Law). In addition to being a Consultant for mandatory Social Protection reform in Angola (since 2014), he has over 30+ years as a legal scholar, public policy consultant and social science researcher (Portugal, Mozambique, Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde), specialising in: Justice system reform, Social protection legislation and Comparative legal sociology. He is the author of books and articles in Portuguese, Spanish, French and English on justice administration reform. Regular speaker at international conferences (UK, France, Germany, Brazil, Mozambique, Spain).