Associate Researchers

List of researchers

List of researchers

Austria

• Sofia Maria Satanakis

  Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES)

  Biography

  Sofia Maria Satanakis is responsible for scientific outreach at the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information. Satanakis is also a senior associated fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES). She first joined AIES in 2013 as a research fellow. Her research addresses European integration with a special focus on EU Common Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security and Defence Policy. She also covers the Western Balkans. In 2017, she joined the Cologne Forum for International Relations and Security Policy (KFIBS e.V.) as part of the research group ‘Europe/EU’. She co-organises yearly conferences within the framework of ‘German-Austrian Debates on the Future of the EU’ for AIES and KFIBS e.V.

Belgium

• Vincent Gabriel

  UCLouvain

  Biography

  Vincent Gabriel is historian and teaching assistant at the Catholic University of Louvain, where he lectures in geopolitics. His research focuses on reconciliation processes, and geopolitical and memory issues. He is currently working on a PhD thesis about teaching practices of conflictual pasts.

Bulgaria

• Marin Lessenski

  Open Society Institute

  Biography

  Marin Lessenski is programme director of the European Policies Program at the Open Society Institute – Sofia. There, he is responsible for the ‘Catch-Up Index’, which measures the convergence or divergence of European countries along key economy, democracy, governance, and quality of life indicators, with a focus on central and eastern Europe. He holds an MA in southeast European studies from the Central European University, Budapest, and an MA in history from the University of Sofia. Previously, he was a Freedom House visiting fellow with the Hudson Institute’s Center for European and Eurasian Studies and the Center of National Security Studies. He has also participated in the Transatlantic Young Leaders programme at the Aspen Institute in Berlin. His research interests include EU foreign, security, neighbourhood, and enlargement policy; south-eastern Europe; and the Black Sea region.

Croatia

• Robin-Ivan Capar

  Spitzberg Partners LLC

  Biography

  Robin-Ivan Capar is a media expert and policy analyst based in Zagreb, Croatia. As the head of the Zagreb office of Spitzberg Partners LLC, he covers the technology, media, and telecom sectors and works on the evaluation and support of investments. Robin previously worked as a contributing editor for Index Publishing, where he had several responsibilities at the most popular Croatian news site, Index.hr. He has previously worked as a consultant for RTL Croatia and Time Out Croatia. He holds a postgraduate specialisation in European project management and MAs in applied linguistics and Italian language and literature from the University of Zagreb, where he is also currently working on his PhD.

Cyprus

• Hüseyin Silman

  Global Policies Centre

  Biography

  Hüseyin Silman is the president of the newly founded Turkish-Cypriot think-tank Global Policies Centre. He also serves as project manager at Cyprus Peace and Dialogue Centre, where he implements an EU-funded civil society project titled ‘Addressing discriminatory human rights violations in Cyprus which arise as a result of the conflict as a vehicle for reconciliation.’ He holds a BA in political science and public administration from Bilkent University in Ankara and an MSc in European politics from Birkbeck, University of London. Between 2007-2019 he oversaw the horizontal coordination of the EU-funded harmonisation of the Turkish-Cypriot community with the European Union and played an active role in the UN-led negotiation process for the comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem.

Czech Republic

• Vladimir Bartovic

  EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy

  Biography

  Vladimír Bartovic is the director of EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy in Prague. In 2014, he was appointed as an external advisor on EU policies to the minister of foreign affairs of the Czech Republic. Previously, he served as a director of strategic planning and analysis at the Slovak Republic’s ministry of foreign affairs, a member of the programme council of the Czech-Polish Forum, and as a board member for several non-governmental organisations. He holds an MA in international trade and international politics from the University of Economics, Prague and lectures on topical EU issues at the Institute of Public Administration and the Czech National Bank. His main areas of expertise include EU affairs, enlargement, and foreign policy; economic development; the economic and monetary union; and Slovak foreign, domestic, and economic policy.

Denmark

• Christine Nissen

  Danish Institute for International Studies

  Biography

  Christine Nissen is a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen. Her research interests include wider European security, Western interventionism, international relations theory, European integration, and national public policy. In particular, she studies multilateral security governance structures and how they affect European states. She holds a PhD from Roskilde University and an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Estonia

• Viljar Veebel

  Baltic Defence College

  Biography

  Viljar Veebel is a researcher in the department of political and strategic studies at the Baltic Defence College in Tartu. He holds a BA and an MA in international relations and a PhD in political science from the University of Tartu. Previously, he was an advisor to the Estonian government in the European Future Convention and a researcher for institutions such as the OSCE, SIDA, the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, the Latvia Institute of International Affairs, and Eurasia Group. He has lectured at the University of Tartu, the Estonian National Defence College, the Ukrainian Diplomatic Academy, the OSCE Border Management Staff College, and the Estonian Diplomatic Academy. His main areas of competence cover Russian military doctrine and strategic ambitions, concepts and models of deterrence for small nation states, and hybrid warfare.

Finland

• Tuomas Iso-Markku

  Finnish Institute of International Affairs

  Biography

  Tuomas Iso-Markku is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

France

• Gesine Weber

  German Marshall Fund of the United States (Paris) & King’s College London

  Biography

  Gesine Weber works as program coordinator at the Paris Office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and is conducting doctoral research at the department of defence studies at King’s College London. Her research addresses European security and defence with a particular focus on new formats of defence cooperation, EU-UK relations, the E3 (France, Germany, UK), and Europe’s role on the geopolitical chessboard. She regularly publishes and speaks on these topics in French, British, and German media. Gesine previously worked as a consultant on China for the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation and as a parliamentary advisor on security and defence for a German member of parliament. She holds an MA in European affairs from SciencesPo Paris and an MA in political science from Freie Universität Berlin. She has also studied Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Germany

• Stephan Naumann

  Biography

  Stephan Naumann works as a officer on EU political education at planpolitik GbR in Berlin, where he is responsible for project management and product development for innovate simulation-game based EU political education formats. He also works independently as a researcher and consultant, where he focuses on German and European foreign and security policy, particularly in the EU’s Southern neighbourhood. He has extensively worked on German EU policy in positions at the Institut für Europäische Politik, Global Bridges e.V., the FiFo Institute for Public Economics and at the Bertelsmann Stiftung. He holds an MA in International Relations from the Freie Universität Berlin and a BA in International Relations as well as Philosophy of the Social Sciences from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, and speaks fluent German, English, Spanish, French, and Dutch.

Greece

• George Tzogopoulos

  Democritus University of Thrace

  Biography

  George Tzogopoulos is an expert in media and politics, international relations, and Chinese affairs. He is a senior research fellow at the Centre International de Européenne and visiting lecturer at its European Institute. He teaches international relations and energy international relations at the Department of Law of the Democritus University of Thrace. Tzogopoulos recently joined the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies as a research associate, where he also moderates a series of online debates on international themes.

Hungary

• Zsuzsanna Végh

  European University Viadrina

  Biography

  Zsuzsanna Végh is an analyst focusing on Central European countries’ European and foreign policy, the state of democracy and the radical right in Central Europe, with particular interest in Hungary. She has extensive experience working at the intersection of academic research and policy analysis. She is a lecturer and PhD researcher at the European University Viadrina and an associate researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She is visiting fellow and was previously ReThink.CEE Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and authored reports for Freedom House’s Nations in Transit on her native Hungary. Previously, she worked at the Center for European Neighborhood Studies of the Central European University and the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs.

Latvia

• Aleksandra Palkova

  Latvian Institute of International Affairs (LIIA)

  Biography

  Aleksandra Palkova is a researcher at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs and a senior laboratory assistant at Riga Stradins University, where she analyses problems within the EU, provides support in research, publications, project management, and the organisation of international conferences. Palkova is currently a master’s student and holds a BA in political science from Riga Stradins University. She was also an exchange student at Western University in the Netherlands. She has organised more than 20 international conferences, frequently commented on current events on radio and television, and supported in the development of Latvian Radio 1’s ‘Diplomatic Lunch’ programme. Her research interests include the political and institutional processes of the EU, Japanese foreign policy, and politics in Central Asia.

Lithuania

• Justinas Mickus

  Eastern Europe Studies Center

  Biography

  Justinas Mickus is a policy analyst at the Lithuanian Government’s Strategic Analysis Center (STRATA) and an associate analyst at the Eastern Europe Studies Center (EESC). His research focuses on the processes of European integration, with a special focus on the EU’s trade, investment, and competition policy. He also covers questions related to Nordic-Baltic cooperation in the context of European and transatlantic politics. Before joining STRATA and EESC, Justinas worked for the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis and the Liechtenstein Institute of Self-Determination at Princeton University. He graduated from Princeton University in 2020 and obtained an MPhil from the University of Cambridge in 2021.

Luxembourg

• Tara Lipovina

  University of Luxembourg

  Biography

  Tara Lipovina is a doctoral candidate in social sciences at the University of Luxembourg. She researches gender coherence in development policy, specifically looking at the impact of European integration on gender equality in EU candidate countries. She also works for a development organisation in Luxembourg as a project manager. Tara holds an MA in European governance from the University of Luxembourg and a BA in political science, with a focus on international relations and diplomacy, from the University of Montenegro and Heidelberg University.

Malta

• Daniel Mainwaring

  Independent Global Policy Researcher

  Biography

  Daniel Mainwaring is an independent foreign policy consultant and researcher based in Malta. He holds an MA in global policy studies from the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Among other recent positions, he has served as an advisor to the Maltese Ministry for Foreign Affairs and a researcher for the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, and he is a regular contributor to Oxford Analytica. His research interests include irregular migration policy and Mediterranean relations.

Netherlands

• Niels van Willigen

  Leiden University

  Biography

  Niels van Willigen is an associate professor of international relations in the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University. His professional interests include theories of international relations, foreign policy analysis, and security studies – particularly peace operations, arms control, and European security. His publications have appeared in journals such as the in European Journal of International Relations, International Peacekeeping, and East European Politics. Van Willigen coordinates the Jean Monnet Network ‘Reconceptualizing European Power in an Age of Turmoil’. He is also involved in educational programs for foreign policy and defence professionals and is regularly invited to expert meetings at foreign policy and defence institutions.

Poland

• Adam Balcer

  College of Eastern Europe

  Biography

  Adam Balcer is programme director at the College of Eastern Europe in Wrocław and lectures at the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw. He has published several books, and many reports and articles on central-eastern Europe and the Black Sea region in various languages.

Portugal

• Lívia Franco

  Catholic University of Portugal

  Biography

  Lívia Franco is a professor and senior researcher at the Institute for Political Studies at the Catholic University of Portugal. Her research interests include contemporary international politics, European politics, and Portuguese foreign policy. She regularly commentates on these subjects in national and international media outlets. Her latest publications include “Edge of the Atlantic: Portugal’s Presidency of the EU Council” (2021), and “Crisis Presidency: How Portuguese leadership can guide the EU into the post-covid Era” (2020) with Susi Dennison.

Romania

• Oana Popescu-Zamfir

  GlobalFocus Centre

  Biography

  Oana Popescu-Zamfir is the director and founder of GlobalFocus Center, an independent foreign policy and security think-tank, and a Europe’s Futures fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. She is also an international consultant, media commentator, writer, and lecturer. Previously, she was the state secretary for EU Affairs in the Romanian government and a foreign policy adviser to the president of the Romanian senate (current NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana), programmes director of the Aspen Institute Romania, and senior editor of the Romanian edition of Foreign Policy magazine. Her expertise covers geopolitics and security in the EU/NATO neighbourhood, transatlantic relations, global political risk and strategic analysis, shifting models of governance, hybrid threats, EU affairs, democratisation and democratic resilience, and influence operations. Oana was a Fulbright scholar at Yale University and completed executive studies at Harvard University and the University of St Andrews.

Slovakia

• Matej Navrátil

  Institute of European Studies and International Relations, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava

  Biography

  Matej Navrátil is a researcher fellow and associate professor at Institute of European Studies and International Relations, Comenius University in Bratislava. His research interests include organisation theory, the European Union, foreign and security policy of the EU, and the Europeanisation of the Balkans. Previously, he was a visiting scholar at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. In his PhD dissertation, Mate explored institutional and administrative changes in ministries of foreign affairs in selected countries as a consequence of Europeanisation beyond EU borders. He has co-authored book chapters for international scholarly volumes published in international peer-review journals and released several working papers focusing on the EU’s role in crisis management and foreign policy in general.

Slovenia

• Marko Lovec

  University of Ljubljana

  Biography

  Marko Lovec is a research fellow and associate professor of international relations at the University of Ljubljana, faculty of social science. He specialises in European integration and central Europe. He has authored a number of reports on Slovenian foreign policy and domestic politics.

Spain

• Astrid Portero

  Independent Political Analyst

  Biography

  Astrid Portero is an independent political and international relations analyst. She holds a BA in political science from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She has written about Brexit, international geopolitics, and European politics for various Spanish media outlets and has contributed to radio and digital commentary on European issues. Her research interests include national identity, democracy studies, European integration, the rise of extreme-right parties in Europe, and geopolitics.

Sweden

• Amna Handzic

  Swedish Institute for International Affairs

  Biography

  Amna Handzic is a programme manager of the Europe Programme at the Swedish Institute for International Affairs.

United Kingdom

• Euan Carss

  King’s College London

  Biography

  Euan Carss is an Economic and Social Research Council funded PhD candidate at King’s College London. He holds an MA (Hons) in international relations from the University of Edinburgh, an MSc in crisis and security management from Leiden University in The Netherlands, and recently completed an MA in European studies at King’s College London. His doctoral research focuses primarily on issues of trust in international relations, particularly the meta-theoretical underpinnings of the concept and its useful application in terms of the foreign and security policy of the EU towards nearby non-member states.