She holds a PhD in Forest Governance by the University of Leeds (U.K); MSc. in European Forestry by the University of Joensuu (Finland); and Engineering in Forestry by the University of Lleida (Spain). Mireia has over ten years of experience working as a social scientist in forestry in Spain and the U.K. and she has participated in several European Projects (GoFOR, COSTE39, GoverNat, Simwood).

Her research focuses on understanding the complex relationships between forestry and society. She works towards a better integration of forest communities’ needs and perspectives into research and forest related policies. For example, in her Ph.D. thesis, she chose to study the impact of European conservation programs on local conservation approaches drawing attention to how local context matters in explaining different governance outputs in European forest conservation policy implementation. 

Currently her activity focuses on two main thematic areas:

Forest Governance work includes: institutional analysis of different natural resource management systems; stakeholder analysis and actors’ discourses; qualitative scenarios; forest and environmental policy assessment; and science-policy-practice interface.

Well-being work includes evaluation of how projects that bring people into natural environments could change people’s sense of well-being and their behaviour. 

Whittet R., Cottrell, J., Carvers S., Pecurul M., A Ennos R. 2016. Supplying trees in an era of environmental uncertainty: Identifying challenges faced by the forest nursery sectors in Great Britain. Land Use Policy, 58: 415-426.

Pecurul M., Di Gregorio, M., Paavola, J. 2014. Discourses of conflict and collaboration and institutional context in the implementation of forest conservation policies in Soria (Spain). Biodiversity & Conservation; 23: 3483–3499.

Pecurul M., de Peray J. 2010. Working toward sustainable public health through the interrelation between environmental and social factors: SESPAS. Gac. Sanit; 24 (1): 74-77.

Pecurul M. 2009. Book review: Governing a common sea: environmental policies in the Baltic Sea region. Edited by Marko Joas, Detlef Jahn, and Kristine Kern, London, Earthscan, 2008,xiv þ 230 pp.,  ISBN 978-1-84407-537-9. In: Environmental Politics, 18: 3, 444 – 466.

 Pecurul M. et al. 2007. The COSTE 39 Action in Spain: The contribution of green spaces and forests to health enhancement.  Ambienta; 64: 55-60.