Maurizio Ferrera - Biography#

Maurizio Ferrera is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Milano. He has been Visiting Professor at numerous foreign universities, member of various scientific committees, co-director of the Rivista di Scienza Politica and co-editor of an editorial series for Routledge. He has participated to various governmental commissions at the Italian and EU levels . Since 2003 he has been a columnist for Corriere della Sera. He is a member of the jury of the Skytte Prize (Upssala University) and of the Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere.

Ferrera has mainly worked on welfare states and European integration. His book on The Welfare State in Italy, published in 1984 (Il Mulino), was the first systematic empirical research on the topic, followed in 1983 by Models of Solidarity (1993, Il Mulino). In 1996, his article on the “Journal of European Social Policy” started the still ongoing debate on the Southern European “model” of welfare. In 2005, Ferrera published The Boundaries of Welfare (OUP), on the relationship between national solidarity and supranational integration. His newest books in English are: Politics and Social Visions. Ideology, Conflict and Solidarity in the EU (OUP, March 2024) and Social Reformism 2.0. Work and Welfare in the 21th century (with J.Mirò and S.Ronchi, Edward Elgar, 2024). Ferrera has also worked on the classics of political theory, in particular Weber.

In 2013 Ferrera won an ERC Advanced Grant for his project on “Reconciling Economic and Social Europe: the role of ideas, values and politics” (REScEU). In 2019 he won an ERC Synergy Grant for a project on “Sovereignty, identity and Solidarity in the EU post-2008” (https://www.solid-erc.eu), together with HP Kriesi (EUI, Florence) and W. Schelkle (LSE). In the same year, Maurizio Ferrera was awarded by the International Political Science Association the “Mattei Dogan” prize for High Achievement in Political Science.