Maria Grazia Pastura manages, within the General Management for the Archives of the Department of Cultural Assets, the Service that coordinates and decides the work of the Archival Superintendence Offices.
From 1967 to 1993, she worked in the State Archives in Rome.
She was Professor of Special Archival Studies -  History of the Institutions of the Ecclesiastic State – in the School of Archival Studies, Paleography and Diplomacy of the State Archives in Rome. Since 1994, she has directed the State Archives in Rieti.
From 1994 to 2001, she was vice chief of the Cabinet and vice chief of the Legal Office of the Italian Department for Cultural Assets and she contributed to the wording of several laws like the Testo Unico for cultural and environmental assets (law decree  490/1999) and she published many commentaries to this law. She was also part of the Technical Commission for the wording of the New Code for Cultural Assets (law decree 42/2004) and of the Commission for the wording of a reform of the sanctions system regarding cultural and environmental assets.
She is member of the Working Group of the University of Tor Vergata for the digitalization of the Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths.
As Director of the Servizio III she created and sometimes she chaired some national working groups with Superintendents, representatives of the regions and other public bodies and universities for the creation of standardized filing plans, records schedules and guidebooks for the management of some public bodies and for the formulation and the actuation of projects concerning the preservation and the valorization of various historical archives.
She is the national responsible of the project for the creation of an internal reporting of the Archival Superintendence Offices (SIUSA), of the description on the Net of non-governmental historical archives and of an Intranet of the General Direction and the Superintendence Offices.
She is Chairperson of the State, regions and territorial public bodies mixed Commission which came into existence because of the agreement for a standard sharing of description of historical archives.