Dr. Michał Matlak has been combining academic work with analytical and strategic activities for over a decade. As an assistant professor at the University of Łódź, he is a co-founder of the European Center for Constitutional Studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration, where he deals with issues of strategic autonomy, sovereignty, and the European constitutional order. At the European Parliament, he worked on EU science, foreign and defense policy, the enlargement process, and lobbying transparency. In 2021, he co-founded the Review of Democracy, published by the CEU Democracy Institute, which he subsequently headed. He also managed the Enlargement Hub, a consortium of leading European research institutions working on the European Union's preparation for enlargement.

He received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, where he now works as a senior fellow at the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies. He is the founder and co-creator of the European Union Security Initiative, a project bringing together EU governments, the European Commission, and academia in a debate on security and defense. He has completed research internships at Princeton University, the University of Montreal, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, and the Hertie School in Berlin, and has participated in projects under the ERC and Horizon programs, gaining experience in working with prestigious research grants.

He has published in Le Monde, The New York Review of Books, Esprit, Rzeczpospolita, and Gazeta Wyborcza, combining academic reflection with a practical approach to public policy.

The question of sovereignty and its relationship with European integration, EU foreign and defense policy, EU enlargement policy, EU science policy.