Dr Giada Lagana is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow and a Lecturer in Politics in the department of Politics and International Relations, School of Law and Politics (LAWPL), Cardoff University. Giada joined Cardiff University in 2019, as Research Associate in the ESRC funded project 'Between two unions.The Constitutional Future of the Islands after Brexit'. She subsequently held another research post at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD), before becoming a Lecturer in Politics at LAWPL. In May 2023, she has been awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowhship to undertake research on socio-spatial governance between the island of Ireland and the United Kingdom. 

She obtained a BA (magna cum laude) in Italian and History at the University of Pavia, Italy. Moreover, she held an MA in International Relations (Université de La Rochelle, France) and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Galway (Ireland). She is a Cardiff University Education Fellow, having also obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Academic Practice (University of Galway) and a DAEFLE (diplôme d’aptitude à l’enseignement du français langue étrangère/professional qualification for teaching French as a foreign language) from the Institut Universitaire des Langues - Français Langue Étrangère (IUL-FLE) at the Université de La Rochelle. 

Her research has been funded both nationally and internationally. She has held visiting teaching and research positions in Germany, France, Ireland, Denmark and the USA. Since 2022, She has been  the President of the Irish Association For Contemporary European Studies (IACES), for which she coordinates an Erasmus+ - Jean Monnet Activities Support to Institutions and Associations grant worth €39.817. 

Her first book, The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process (Palgrave, 2021) outlines the European Union’s approach to conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. She has also published extensively on Irish contemporary Politics, Cross-Border Cooperation and metagovernance.