Full Professor
Faculty of Economics, Social and Business Sciences
Lusofona University
PURE
Diana Dias is Full Professor at Universidade Lusófona, where she serves as Pro-Rector for Science and Innovation, Dean of two higher education schools in Economics and Management, Director of the Doctoral School, and Director of the INTREPID Lab, a research centre integrated in CETRAD.
Her research examines how individuals and organizations make sense of complexity, construct decisions, and adapt to changing institutional environments. Working at the intersection of Management, Higher Education, Psychology, and Governance, she has developed an interdisciplinary research agenda centred on educational decision-making, student transitions, curricular governance, organizational sensemaking, and organizational drift. Her work explores how universities, organizations, and individuals interpret external expectations and transform them into institutional practices, professional identities, and strategic action.
She holds a Ph.D. in Education Sciences and two habilitations, one in Learning Psychology and another in Management, reflecting her longstanding commitment to integrating behavioural, educational, and organizational perspectives. Throughout her career, she has combined academic leadership with an active research profile, previously serving for more than eight years as Vice-Rector for Research, Quality and Academic Innovation and as Interim Rector at Universidade Europeia.
Professor Diana Dias has published extensively in international journals and books across the fields of Management, Higher Education, Psychology, and Education. Her research spans topics including higher education governance, curriculum design, learning outcomes, organizational behaviour, social innovation, and institutional transformation. She has led and participated in numerous national and international research projects and has established a sustained programme of research on how educational and organizational systems respond to societal and institutional change.
Alongside her academic work, she collaborates with national and international organizations on higher education policy, research evaluation, quality assurance, and innovation, including UNESCO, OECD, the European University Association (EUA), A3ES, CNE, CPLP, DGEEC, and POCH. Her work aims to bridge research, policy, and practice, contributing to the development of more reflective, adaptive, and socially responsive organizations.
Her research seeks to understand how individuals and organizations interpret complexity, construct meaning, and transform external expectations into educational, organizational, and societal change.
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Projects
- Programme: Erasmus+
- Action Type: KA220-HED - Cooperation partnerships in higher education
- Funding: 400 000,00€
- Participating Organisations: Veleučilište Aspira
- Partner Organisations: UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA, STICHTING HOGESCHOOL VAN AMSTERDAM, UNIVERSITE LYON 1 CLAUDE BERNARD, NATSIONALNA SPORTNA AKADEMIYA VASSIL LEVSKI, COFAC COOPERATIVA DE FORMACAO E ANIMACAO CULTURAL CRL.
- Key Team Members from Lusofona University: Professora Doutora Diana Silva Dias, Profª Doutora Teresa Ribeiro Candeias, Profª Doutora Gina Maria Marques de Carvalho Santos
- Objectives: The project aims to develop and improve competences and skills in higher education students in the field the digital and green transition faced by the European economies, focusing on the sports domain. The project looks to develop a challenge- based approach that connects the education activities in participant HEIs with the needs and challenges of the stakeholders, fostering engagement, doing so in a multidisciplinary and multicultural way, strengthening the students’ knowledge and abilities.
