Maria Manuel Leitão Marques holds a degree in Law from the Faculty of Law at the University of Coimbra, and holds a PhD and an aggregation in Economics from the Faculty of Economics of the same university. Since 2003, she has been a Full Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra and a Permanent Researcher at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. She is the author and co-author of various books and articles on Public Regulation, Competition Law, and Public Services.
Between 2015 and 2019, she served as a Member of the Assembly of the Republic. During the same period, she was the Minister of the Presidency and Administrative Modernization of the Portuguese government. She also held the position of Secretary of State for Administrative Modernization in the XVIII and XVII Constitutional Governments (2007–2011).
In the context of her roles with European Union institutions, she was a Member of the High-Level Group on Administrative Burdens (European Commission) between 2013-2014. In 2002, she served as an Expert for the European Commission to prepare a Report on Higher Education in Angola and Mozambique under the Framework Programme for Cooperation in Higher Education between the EU and ACP countries.
In 2019, she was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the 9th legislature (2019-2024). In the scope of her parliamentary activities, she is the Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, a full member of the Committee on Legal Affairs, and a substitute member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality. She focuses on digital issues, science and innovation, consumer protection and product safety, and gender equality. She is part of the Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and the Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, where she serves as coordinator for the Group of Socialists and Democrats.