The people

Maria has extensive experience working as an evaluator and expert on funded programmes at national and European level. This includes contributing to the evaluation, learning, and impact assessment of projects funded through frameworks such as Horizon Europe, ESF+, and Erasmus+.

Her role has typically focused on survey design, analysis of qualitative and mixed data, participant feedback, and the generation of evidence to support reporting, learning, and accountability. This work often involves complex datasets, multiple stakeholder groups, and the need to produce findings that are both methodologically sound and practically usable.

 Experience includes working with project consortia, research teams, and delivery organisations, supporting both ongoing and ex-post evaluation activities. The emphasis is on translating participant and stakeholder feedback into clear insight that can be used by coordinators, partners, and funders. 

Skills & expertise

Research and evaluation expertise

Maria brings strong expertise in research design, evaluation, and learning, supporting organisations to understand effectiveness, impact, and participant experience. Her work spans programme evaluation, social research, and applied analysis in complex organisational settings.
 

Qualitative and mixed data analysis

She specialises in analysing large volumes of open-ended feedback using systematic, language-based approaches that work at scale. This includes synthesising qualitative and quantitative data to identify recurring patterns, priorities, and variation across responses.
 

Survey design and feedback analysis

Maria has extensive experience designing and refining surveys and feedback tools, combining quantitative measures with carefully structured open-ended questions to generate meaningful, analysable data.
 

Applied, decision-focused insight

A consistent focus across her work is translating analysis into clear insight that supports decision-making, learning, and improvement. Outputs are designed to be accessible, defensible, and relevant to different audiences, from programme teams to senior stakeholders.
 

Qualifications & professional background 

Maria holds a PhD in Linguistics, with specialist expertise in corpus-based analysis of large text datasets. She has led and contributed to research and evaluation projects across the UK’s public and third sectors, including work on employability, social inclusion, and national service delivery initiatives.

Awards

Oct 2014 | University of Sunderland - Fully-Funded Three-year PhD Scholarship

Nov 2023 | UK Evaluation Society - Ipsos Early Career Evaluator

Selected Publications 

• Fotiadou, M. (2025) Corpus Linguistics and Programme Evaluation: The Case of Wise Steps in the North East of England. Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031929823 
• Fotiadou, M. (2023) 'Analysing qualitative Feedback using Corpus Linguistics tools: The case of Wise Steps in the North East of England'.  Evaluation Practice. UK Evaluation Society.
• Fotiadou, M. (2022) The Language of Employability. Palgrave MacMillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-10252-3 
• Fotiadou, M. (2021) ‘We are here to help you: Understanding the role of careers and employability services in UK universities’. Text & Talk. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2019-0162 
• Fotiadou, M. (2020) ‘Denaturalising the discourse of competition in the graduate job market and the notion of employability: A corpus-based study of UK university websites’. Critical Discourse Studies. 17 (3), pp. 260-291. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405904.2018.1546606 

Selected Conference Presentations 

• Fotiadou, M. (2025) 'Data in Context: Transforming Qualitative Data with Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis’. Presented at: UK Evaluation Society Annual Conference. 19 – 21 May 2025, Glasgow, UK.
• Fotiadou, M. (2023) ‘Analysing qualitative feedback using Corpus Linguistics tools: The case of Wise Steps in the North East of England’. Presented at: UK Evaluation Society Annual Conference. 2 - 4 October 2023, London, UK.
• Fotiadou, M. (2017) ‘Competitive job markets’ and ‘employable graduates’. A corpus-based critical discourse analysis of UK universities’ Careers and Employability web pages’. Presented at: The 9th International Corpus Linguistics Conference. 24 - 28 July 2017, Birmingham, UK.
• Fotiadou, M. (2016) ‘Preparing Higher Education students for the ‘world of work’. Careers advisers’ expert roles in UK Universities: A critical corpus-based discourse analysis’. Presented at: Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines. 5 September 2016, Catania, Italy.
• Fotiadou, M. (2016) ‘We are here to help’: A diachronic study of careers services’ discourse in UK university websites. Poster Exhibited at: 11th Lancaster University International Postgraduate Conference in Linguistics and Language Teaching. 11 July 2016, Lancaster, UK.