The FERBOPO proposal aims at building a new research group at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu (LBUS) focused on the complex relationship between State, Church and Body Politics that would foster excellence in social sciences and better integrate LBUS in the European Research Area (ERA). To this end, LBUS will create a CHAIR position for Professor Lavinia STAN from St. Francis Xavier University (Canada), whose outstanding academic profile and thorough expertise in the cross-cutting fields of government, religion, economics and epistemology that foster (de)colonial feminist thinking (Lugones, 2010; Manning, 2021) and the institutionalisation of Gender Studies in Romania (Turcescu and Stan, 2005; Stan, 2010) will help increase the number of excellent research staff and improve their capability to attract competitive research funding with significant spill-over effects at societal level, while also assisting LBUS to implement institutional reforms that both align with ERA priorities and facilitate the implementation of the Gender Equality Plan (GEP). The main objective of this FERBOPO is to create a ‘pocket of excellence’ in LBUS by attracting outstanding scientists with internationally mobile academic careers so as to improve the host institution’s organizational culture and the academic outputs of LBUS scholars. Romanian higher education institutions continue to lag behind their Western counterparts in their governance effectiveness and academic performance indicators (Dobbins, 2017). An acute scientific production deficit is related to Gender Studies (Vlase and Terian, 2023). By creating the new chair and research group, the proposed ERA Chair will help LBUS to near European standards of academic performance and institutionalisation of Gender Studies. Through the employment at LBUS of the ERA Chair holder, FERBOPO will contribute to the creation of a knowledge hub in the university, in particular, and the Romanian higher education system, in general.