Ricardo Borges de Castro

Ricardo Borges de Castro is an analyst on European and global affairs with over twenty-five years of experience in international relations, policymaking, and foresight. A guest columnist at Sábado, he is also a Senior Adviser at the European Policy Centre (EPC), a non-Resident Senior Fellow on Strategic Foresight at the Greek foundation ELIAMEP, an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), and a Senior Fellow at Agora Strategy.

Ricardo’s research interests focus on geopolitics, the EU’s international role and the future of Europe, transatlantic relations, global trends, and scenarios. 

Ricardo is an experienced keynote speaker, moderator, and facilitator, and regularly lectures in executive education programmes at the School of Transnational Governance in Florence, the College of Europe and the ISCTE. He is also regular commentator in several media outlets including BBC World News, France24, Euronews, YLE, L’Express, Euractiv, Kathimerini, CNN Portugal, SIC Notícias, Público and Expresso.

Ricardo was a Visiting Scholar at the College of Europe from April to December 2024. Before that, he was an Associate Director and Head of Europe in the World Programme at the EPC, Brussels-based think tank, where he was the founding editor of the yearly ‘EPC Outlook Paper.’ Before joining the EPC, Ricardo was foresight lead at the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), the European Commission’s in-house think tank under President Jean-Claude Juncker. Previously, Ricardo was Member of Cabinet of José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission. In Portugal, he served in the Prime-Minister’s office and in the Portuguese Parliament. 

Ricardo holds a Master of Arts (MALD) from The Fletcher School and a DPhil (PhD) in International Relations from the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College).

Besides Portugal, he has lived in the US, UK, Türkiye, and lately in Belgium. He enjoys running and the outdoors. He posts on X @ricbdc and Bluesky