Macarena Cuenca holds a PhD in Leisure & Human Development. She is an associate professor at Deusto Business School, where she lectures Strategy and Business Organisation at Deusto Business School. She is also a member of the research team at the University of Deusto Leisure Studies Institute. Her main line of research is cultural audience development, the topic on which she prepared her doctoral thesis. She teaches at the postgraduate level at various universities and regularly takes part in several competitive European and domestic research projects. It can be highlighted that Macarena coordinated the Erasmus+ (Knowledge Alliances) CONNECT project, where the University of Deusto was the leading partner in a consortium formed out of 10 partners.
She has published papers in such scientific journals as “Arts Management, Law, and Society”, “International Journal of Event and Festival Management” and “Museum Management and Curatorship”. She is also committed to transferring knowledge into the cultural sector by participating in seminars, encounters, and workshops with cultural practitioners. In this sense, she is the author of the DEUSTO Social Impact Briefings publication entitled “Becoming an audience-centred organisation. Guidelines for developing an audience approach at cultural organisations”.