Miguel de França Doria was born in Portugal, where he studied environmental engineering and worked as a water analyst in a quality control laboratory. He has a BSc (1st class Honours) and a PhD in Environmental Sciences from University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK). From 2003 to 2006, he worked as a researcher for the Programme on Understanding Risk, at the Centre for Environmental Risk (UK), and for the project ‘Defining Successful Adaptation to Climate Change’ at the Tyndall Centre (UK). Mr Doria was a Chevening Scholar, a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation fellow, and was awarded the EPAL Prize 1997-98. He joined the UNESCO Secretariat in 2006.