Dr Lorena Sancho Querol holds a bachelor´s degree in Fine Arts by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1995), a Master and a PhD in Social Museology by the Universidade Lusófona in Lisbon. Her PhD thesis was entitled “Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sociomuseology: a study on inventories” and focused on the theory and good practice of participatory inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

She was awarded grants by the “ERASMUS-MUNDUS program” (1995-96); of the “EEA Grants & Norwegian Financial Mechanism” (PT0019/EEA-grants, 2007-09); by the “Science and Technology Foundation” (FCT) of the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Education (FCT-SFRH/BD/63787/2009, 2010-11), and by the COST Action IS1007 “Training School “Culture(s) in Sustainable Futures” (2015). She was also a Guest Professor at the PVE/CAPES Program (Brazil 2015-16).

Lorena is currently a Researcher in the area of Social Museology and a member of the RG “Cities, Cultures and Architectures” at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, where she is presently developing her post-doctoral project “Society in the Museum: a study on cultural participation in local European museums” (SoMus), with the support of the above mentioned FCT. In the same context she integrates the coordination team of the P-2020 project “Creative Tourism Destination Development in Small Cities and Rural Areas” (CREATOUR) since 2016, and the CES team at the H-2020 project “European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities” (ECHOES) which she coordinates together with Paulo Peixoto since 2018.

Lorena’s research and teaching activities are directed to new models of participatory management in local museums, on the recognition of invisibilized collective memories, and on social legitimation of local heritage through collaborative tools such as participatory inventories, cultural mapping or the creation of new museological formulas.