Mark Harwood is a Professor in European Comparative Politics with the Institute for European Studies and was Director of the Institute from 2016 until 2024. He has been an academic at the University of Malta since 2003, having previously worked for the European Commission. After completing his BA Hons in International Relations at the University of Malta, he won an EU-funded scholarship to study for the Masters in Contemporary European Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. In 2009 he completed his Doctoral thesis in Public Management with a study on the Europeanization of the Maltese Public Administration, published in 2014 by Routledge as 'Malta in the European Union'. Prof Harwood teaches courses in comparative politics, EU policy, lobbying and Europeanization and is currently supervising 2 doctoral students in the areas of European Parliament political groups and their role in European integration as well as the Coordination of EU Affairs in small states. Prof Harwood sits on various editorial boards in Malta and overseas.