Project Team
Jubjana Vila is the head of the Center for European Studies and Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at EPOKA University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in international Relations and Minor degree in Economics; a Master’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution and a PhD in Political Science and International Relations. Since 2020 she is the Managing Editor of the Journal of European Social Research. Her areas of interests include international relations, foreign policy, conflict studies, EU and Balkan politics. She is teaching courses of international relations, EU politics, foreign policy, political psychology and research methods
Reina Shehi is the head of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at EPOKA University where she has been a faculty member since 2011. She has an interdisciplinary research orientation and her academic works cover topics of international mediation, foreign policy, conflict resolution and peace studies. In July 2012 Kellogg School of Management granted her Dispute Resolution Research Centre Scholar Award. During her academic career, she has previously served as a member of the Project Office Board of EPOKA University and currently she is a member of EPOKA University’s Academic Evaluation and Quality Improvement Board. She is teaching courses of political sociology, democratization, crisis management, conflict resolution, ethnicity and nationalism.
Avdi Smajli is member of the Center for European Studies and lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at EPOKA University. He has a MA in European Studies from the University of Hamburg and a PhD in Political Science from the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany. He teaches courses of Political Sciences and European Integration and his research interests include: populism, European integration, political parties, democratization, elections. He has participated in a number of Tempus and Erasmus+ projects.
Florian Bieber is a Professor of Southeast European History and Politics and Director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair in the Europeanisation of Southeastern Europe. He is the coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG) and has been providing policy advice to international organisations, foreign ministries, donors and private investors. He studied Political Science and History at Trinity College (USA), the University of Vienna, and Central European University (Budapest). He has worked for the European Centre for Minority Issues and taught at Kent University (UK). He is also a Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at CEU. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the LSE and New York University, and held the Luigi Einaudi Chair at Cornell University. Recent publications include Debating Nationalism (Bloomsbury 2020) and The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans (Palgrave 2020), as well Negotiating Unity and Diversity in the European Union (Palgrave, 2021, with Roland Bieber).
Emmanuella Doussis is a Professor of International Institutions at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, director of the Institute of European Integration and Policy, and UNESCO chairholder on climate diplomacy. She has studied political science and law at the University of Athens and at the Sorbonne in Paris (Paris I). After a first Master’s in Public International Law, she completed a second one in Environmental Law and a Phd in International Law. She has been visiting professor at the Universities of Bourgogne, Grenoble-Alpes and Aix-Marseille, and visiting fellow at the University of Geneva and the European University Institute in Florence. She is a member of the ILA Committee on the role of international law in sustainable management of natural resources and the Greek National Committee for Adaptation on Climate Change. She has published alone or in collaboration with other authors ten books, and numerous articles in peer-review international journals. Her research interests include international and European environmental policy, the role of international institutions in the promotion of sustainable development, climate diplomacy, including the EU climate diplomacy, international settlement of disputes. Her more recent book concerns the role of international law in effectively managing climate change.
Ivana Radic Milosavljevic is an assistant professor of European Studies at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Sciences. She earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations, magister degree in European studies and a Ph.D in political science, all three at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. She teaches several courses at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science, and one course within the joint MA program of the University of Belgrade and University of Graz. She participates in several international and national research and teaching projects, and she coordinates an international research network “EU Enlargement Futures”. Her fields of interests encompass EU politics, integration and enlargement as well as teaching EU practices.
Ognen Vangelov holds a PhD in Political Studies from Queen’s University, Canada and is an Assistant Professor at the University American College-Skopje in North Macedonia. He also is a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Democracy and Diversity at Queen’s University in Canada. He has been a recipient of Canada’s Vanier Fellowship and the US Ron Brown Fellowship. His research focuses on the drivers and mechanisms of autocratization in countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and the politics of ethnicity and nationalism. His publications on these topics have appeared in major international academic and policy journals. His other current projects focus on the politics of complex diversity in contested cities, as well as on minority institutions and institutional domains of ethnolinguistic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe.
