Partners

COHESIFY brings together a consortium of 8 universities and 2 SMEs from 10 EU Member States with complementary disciplinary backgrounds and applied and creative expertise in regional economics, politics, public policy, communication, branding and citizen engagement.

Team

Adam Ploszaj

Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (University of Warsaw)

Adam Ploszaj

Adam Ploszaj is an assistant professor at the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies. He holds a PhD in Economics and Management. Adam was a visiting scholar at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada (2011), at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands (2014), at University College London, England (2014), and at Indiana University Bloomington, USA (2016). He is an expert on regional and local development. His research interests include policy evaluation, R&D policy, scientometrics, and territorial cooperation. Adam has participated in several research projects, including international projects financed by the 6th and 7th Framework Programmes, as well as ESPON (European Territorial Observatory Network). He has also conducted field research in Poland, Canada, France, Spain, Germany and Ukraine. He has implemented applied projects commissioned by international organizations: the European Commission, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, as well as Polish institutions: the Ministry of Regional Development, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the National Centre for Research and Development, the National Science Center, and the Polish Agency of Business Development. In 2014 Adam was awarded a prestigious 3-year Scholarship for Outstanding Young Scientists by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Since 2015 he has been a member of the Young Scientists Council at the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

In the COHESIFY project, Adam carries out spatial analysis and takes care of the Polish case studies.

Agnes Batory

Central European University, Center for Policy Studies

Agnes Batory

Agnes Batory is a Professor at CEU’s School of Public Policy and a Research Fellow of the Center for Policy Studies. She is Director of the Erasmus Mundus Masters Program in Public Policy (Mundus MAPP), a joint program delivered by four European universities and funded by the European Commission. She holds a PhD from Cambridge University. Her research interests include corruption and corruption control, party politics, and a number of sectoral policies and institutional aspects of EU governance. She currently contributes to two Horizon2020 projects : one dealing with the EU's Transboundary Crisis Management Capacities (TransCrisis) and another with the Impact of Cohesion Policy on EU Identification (Cohesify).

Andreja Pegan

Trinity College Dublin

Andreja Pegan

Andreja Pegan is a postdoctoral research fellow at Trinity Research in Social Science (TRiSS). In the COHESIFY project she is responsible for the empirical implementation of the project for the Irish case. Prior to this, Andreja worked at the University of Luxembourg, where she obtained a PhD in Political Science.

Andrew Cartwright

Central European University, Center for Policy Studies

Andrew Cartwright

Andrew Cartwright is a Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Studies specializing in rural development.  He joined CEU from the University of Liverpool, UK in 2002. 

He holds a PhD in law from the University of Warwick.  His doctoral research was a history of land and agrarian reforms in Romania and a case study of the implementation of post-socialist restitution laws.  After working for the Charity Law Unit, University of Liverpool, he continued researching rural property relations in Romania with a post-doctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany.

Since beginning at CEU, Andrew has carried out research on the rural transition in several post-socialist countries, including the development of private land ownership in Mongolia, emerging land markets in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, rural civil society in Romania, the implementation of the EU’s cohesion policy in rural Hungary and most recently, the implications of demographic changes for rural land use in central and eastern Europe.

At CPS, Andrew has been involved in promoting public policy teaching and research at CEU, mentoring on the Open Society Institute’s International Policy Fellowship programme, teaching Rural Development Policy since 2005 and mentoring MA and PhD students. 

He runs the Policy Lab course which gives MA students the chance to work on policy research projects for external clients such as the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity as well as several programs of the Open Science Foundation.

He is the editor of the Policy Documentation Center which is one of the largest online collections of policy papers from the former socialist countries.  

He is Chair of the Board of PASOS, a network of think tanks from central and eastern Europe and central Asia.

Anita Halász

Central European University, Center for Policy Studies

Anita Halász

Anita Halász is a Junior Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Studies and a lecturer at Budapest Corvinus University. Her main research interests include education and social policy, early childhood education, public sector economics and comparative political economy.

Anna Frankowska

Old-Continent Agency

Anna Frankowska

Anna has a background in linguistics and European affairs. She is a project manager at Old-Continent and coordinates creation of websites, animations and
videos. She also gathers research data that offers strongly backed-up strategic recommendations.

In COHESIFY project, Anna monitors the events relating to Cohesion Policy in Brussels, manages the website and drafts the concepts for infographics.

Bardia Mashhoodi

TUDelft

Bardia Mashhoodi

I am researcher in department of urbanism, chair of environmental design and technology, at TU Delft. I am also teaching multiple GIS and cartography courses to bachelor, master, post-graduate and Ph.D candidates of the department of urbanism.

My area of interest is in multidisciplinary urban quantitative analytics which simultaneously deal with spatial qualities and mathematical techniques e.g. GIS analysis, modelling, spatial statistics and optimization. This is due to my dual background in engineering (bachelor of Industrial engineering, Tehran polytechnic 2006), architecture (bachelor of science in architecture, Azad university, faculty of Art and Architecture, Tehran-markaz, Tehran, 2007) and urbanism (master of science in urbanism, TUDelft, 2010). I am also a Ph.D candidate since 2010.

Since 2009 I have been involved in multiple research projects in department of urbanism as researcher among them:

- Analysis of optimum location for new bridges on Mass river (founded by municipality of Rotterdam)
- Development of a GIS-based decision support system for municipality experts for revitalization of Rotterdam south (founded by municipality of Rotterdam)
- Better airport region project, to increase economic and social gains from air traffic in Schiphol airport (founded by NWO in collaboration with Technical University of Munich (TUM) and ETZ Zurich)
- Understanding residential energy consumption and energy poverty in the Randstad region (3TU funded)
- DC Distribution Smart Grids ( funded by ERA-NET Horizin 2020 programme in collaboration with Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, Direct Current BV, The Netherlands, Fraunhofer IISB, Germany, Centre Suisse d’Électronique et Microtechnique, Switzerland)

Carlos Mendez

University of Strathclyde

Carlos Mendez

Carlos was educated at University College London (BA), London School of Economics (MSc) and Strathclyde (PhD). As a specialist on the European Union and regional development policy, Carlos’ main research interests include EU Cohesion policy, the EU Budget, and regional policy in Portugal and Spain. He has co-authored a monograph on EU Cohesion policy, published various academic articles and policy reports, and worked on a wide range of projects and evaluation studies for EU, national and regional institutions.

Celine Cantat

Central European University, Center for Policy Studies

Celine Cantat

Celine Cantat is currently a visiting research fellow at CPS as part of H2020 project COHESIFY and Academic Program Manager of CEU’s OLIVe-UP program, a university preparatory program for refugee students. Previously, Celine conducted a postdoctoral project concerned with migration solidarity movements in Hungary and Central Europe and their relation to the European political project and its border regime.

Before starting at CPS, Celine completed her PhD in Refugee Studies at the Centre for Research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging, at the University of East London, and spent a year at Migrinter, Universite de Poitiers, as an INTEGRIM Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher. Celine’s PhD research was concerned with pro-migrant organisations and networks in France, Italy and the UK and the construction of political responses to the European Union project and its border regime.

Celine holds an MSc in Globalisation and Development from SOAS, University of London, and a BA in European Studies from King’s College London. She has also worked and volunteered with migrants’ rights’ organisations in London and Paris, as well as with refugee groups in Syria.

Constantinos Djouvas

Cyprus University of Technology

Constantinos Djouvas

Constantinos Djouvas is a member of the Communication and Internet Studies department of the Cyprus University of technologies. He has a long experience on different aspects related to web. His experience and expertise ranges from development to data mining analysis of web generated content. More precisely, he designed and developed a number of online platforms for different domains. Also, he developed advanced data mining techniques automating the process of collecting vast amount of data from different online sources. Furthermore, he has long experience on analyzing web generated data using machine aided techniques (content analysis, sentiment analysis, classification). Finally, Constantinos Djouvas during his career had the opportunity to participate on a number projects of funded by different bodies

Dominic Stead

TUDelft

Dominic Stead

Dominic Stead is associate professor of urban and regional planning in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at Delft University of Technology. He began his academic career as researcher at the University of the West of England. From 1996 to 2001, he was research fellow at University College London in the Bartlett School of Planning and associate lecturer at the University of the West of England. He moved to Delft University of Technology in 2001, initially as a postdoctoral researcher supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship, a European postdoctoral research training grant for young talented academics. He belongs to the OTB Research and Spatial Planning and Strategy groups. Since moving to Delft, Dominic has been principal investigator for more than 10 large European research projects on issues related to urban development, governance and sustainability.

Dominic has a strong interdisciplinary background: a doctorate in Planning Studies, a master's degree in Town and Country Planning and a master's degree in Environmental Science. His research and teaching focus on processes of policy-making and the impacts of policies, particularly in relation to urban transport and spatial planning. He has recently been involved in projects funded by ESPON, European Framework Programmes, JPI Urban Europe and the United Nations. He has broad experience in teaching, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level, including courses on urban and regional planning, urban environmental management and transport planning.

Dominic has published widely in books and international journals and has co-edited five books: 'European Transport Policy and Sustainable Development' (2000, Spon), 'Policy Integration in Practice' (2004, Delft University Press), 'Transition towards Sustainable Mobility' (2012, Ashgate), 'Impacts of European Territorial Policies in the Baltic States' (2015, Routledge) and 'Planning Cultures and Histories' (2017, Routledge). He is European editor of the international peer-reviewed journal Planning Practice and Research, as well as

Dorothee Fischer

Old-Continent Agency

Dorothee Fischer

Dorothee Fischer is a communications and international affairs expert collaborating with European institutions and programmes, NGOs, universities and private companies world-wide. Before becoming self-employed in April 2014, she used to work as Communication and Project Development Officer for the European programmes INTERREG IIIC and INTERACT, giving technical assistance to European Territorial Cooperation and Interreg programmes including IPA and ENPI CBC. She has also gained extensive experience as a freelance journalist and producer among others for ARTE (FR/DE), Ethnographic Media (US), Cámara Boreal (ES), and Herr Willie Productions (DE). Between 2003 and 2008, she was running the Strasbourg office of the international NGO “Association of the Local Democracy Agencies”, in charge of press relations and managing a variety of international human rights and development projects in South East Europe and the Southern Caucasus.

Being fluent in German, English, French and Spanish, Dorothee is specialised in drafting communication and media outreach strategies and developing innovative communication tools such as webdocumentaries, films, websites and social media. In addition, she gives trainings on communication issues on a regular basis and facilitates events.

In the COHESIFY project, Dorothee deals with media relations and supports the communication and dissemination activities.

Dragos Adascalitei

Central European University, Center for Policy Studies

Dragos Adascalitei

Dragos Adascalitei is a Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Studies. His main research interests include industrial sociology, comparative political economy, economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the impact of MNCs on labour relations in Central and Eastern Europe, social policies and institutional change.

Fuen Martin

Regio Plus Consulting,

Fuen Martin

Consultant with 10 years of experience in Rural Development and Agriculture. Fuensanta has participated in several projects on evaluation and programming of European projects
Role in COHESIFY Project: Senior expert in assessment of European Funds.

Gail McElroy

Trinity College Dublin

Gail McElroy

Gail McElroy is a Professor in Political Science and the Head of the School of Social Sciences and Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. She is the principal investigator of the COHESIFY project at Trinity College Dublin. She has published widely in the fields of legislative behaviour and party politics.

Gauthier Bas

Old-Continent Agency

Gauthier Bas

Gauthier is the co-founder of Old-Continent, a communication agency based in Brussels. He manages the Brussels’ operations of the agency, working mostly with the European Institutions, environmental NGOs, and high-tech private companies on the conception, production and dissemination of communication campaigns.

Gauthier started his career at the European Parliament working for DG Communication and for a French MEP. He then worked for a leading PR consultancy in Brussels for clients in the field of financial services, agro business and construction materials. He travelled to most of European countries, studied political science in Brussels, Prague and Strasbourg from where he holds a Master in European Affairs and is passionate about History.

Giovanni Perucca

Politecnico di Milano

Giovanni Perucca

Assistant Professor of Regional and Urban Economics at Politecnico di Milano.
He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Milano. 
He is member and, for the 2016-2019 term, auditor of the Italian Regional Science Association (AISRe), and he is also member of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA).
His research interests include the evaluation of the European Union Cohesion Policy and the assessment of cultural policies.
He has published on several international refereed journals such as Transport Policy, Papers in Regional Science, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of Common Market Studies.

Janusz T. Hryniewicz

Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (University of Warsaw)

Janusz T. Hryniewicz

Professor in Warsaw University, Centre for European Regional and Local Studies, EUROREG. Author of 227 articles and author or co-author of 12 scientific books. Main fields of research: economic sociology, politics, local and regional studies. Main books: “Political and cultural context for economic development”, “Relations of work in polish organizations”, “Poland against the background of historical divisions of European space and contemporary economic, social and political changes”, in polish.

Jaume Garau

RegioPlus

Jaume Garau

Jaume is an expert in planning, management and marketing of tourism products and destinations. He has experience in tourist destinations in Spain, Malta, Brazil, Russia, Azerbaijan, etc. He holds a PhD in Economics.

John Bachtler

European Policies Research Centre (University of Strathclyde)

John Bachtler

Professor John Bachtler is Professor of European Policy Studies and a Director of the European Policies Research Centre. His research experience is principally in regional and industrial development in Europe, encompassing the economic development policies of the EU28 Member States and several other European countries, the structural and cohesion policies of the European Union, EU integration and enlargement. He has led EPRC research on regional policy, rural development, territorial development, foreign investment, RTDI and policy evaluation. He has been an expert adviser to numerous government departments across Western, Central and Eastern Europe, and an adviser to European organisations (European Parliament, European Commission, Committee of the Regions, European Court of Auditors, Assembly of European Regions)as well as the OECD and Nordic Council of Ministers. He has been an Expert Adviser to six EU Presidencies over the past decade on budgetary and regulatory reform, and directs the IQ-Net programme of research and knowledge-exchange on the management and implementation of Structural Funds across the EU. He is  Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.

Juan Miguel Carrascosa

Cyprus University of Technology

Juan Miguel Carrascosa

Juan Miguel Carrascosa received his MSc in Telecommunications Engineering at University Carlos III of Madrid (Spain) in 2011, and his MSc and PhD in Telematics Engineering also at University Carlos III of Madrid (Spain) in 2012 and 2016 respectively. He was researcher and teaching assistant at the Telematic Engineering Department and NETCOM research group from 2011 to 2015. In addition, from October 2015 to March 2016 he was intern at Telefonica Research Lab in Barcelona. His research interests mainly include Online Social Networks, Online Advertising and Internet Measurements. He is author of publications on these subjects in international conferences and journals such as ACM CoNEXT, PlosONE or ACM COSN

Konstantinos Vadratsikas

Cyprus University of Technology

Konstantinos Vadratsikas

Konstantinos Vadratsikas (MA Political Science) became acquainted with academic research during his master studies in Leiden from where he graduated in 2007. Since then he has worked as a research assistant with several academics in Greece and Cyprus from University of Macedonia, Cyprus University of Technology, National Social Research Centre in Athens (EKKE) and the University of Cyprus. He has co-authored several papers focusing on political psychology, mass media, political and electoral behavior, new media and user generated content, political communication and journalism, in Greek and International journals such as the International Journal of Communication (2015), Studies in Communication and Culture (2016), Observatorio (2012) The Cyprus Review (2015) and Zitimata Epikoinonias (2008). Through his long working experience as researcher he has acquired significant experience in both quantitative and qualitative research design and analysis and is considered an expert in the field of media framing analysis. Since 2013, he freelances as an external research advisor and his research interests involve issues such as journalism in the digital age, new media and political communication, political participation and the internet and mass media and democratic governance

Laura Corchado

RegioPlus

Laura Corchado

As an agricultural engineer, Laura is an expert in Rural Development and Cohesion Policy. She has participated in the management of numerous rural development plans and operative programmes.

Role in COHESIFY Project: Senior expert in assessment of European Funds

Leandros Fischer

Cyprus University of Technology

Leandros Fischer

Leandros Fischer studied social anthropology and political science at the universities of Cologne and Marburg, from where he holds a Ph.D in political science. His doctoral thesis on Die Linke´s position on Israel and Palestine has been published by Springer VS in April 2016. His research interests include contemporary German politics, Cyprus, the Middle East, migration and social movements. He works for the COHESIFY project as an associate researcher since January 2017. 

Maciej Smetkowski

Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (University of Warsaw)

Maciej Smetkowski

Maciej Smętkowski is Assistant Professor of Socio-Economic Geography at Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (University of Warsaw). Author of publications on metropolisation process, instruments of regional policy and cross-border co-operation including books: “Regional Development and Regional Policy in Central and Eastern European Countries in the period of transformation and globalisation” and “The European Metropolises and Their Regions: from Economic Landscape to Metropolitan Networks”. He has extensive experience in evaluation of public policies. He has been involved in number of research projects carried-out within programmes of the EU and ESPON. Chairman of the Polish Section of the Regional Studies Association.

Marcin Dąbrowski

TUDelft

Marcin Dąbrowski

Marcin Dąbrowski is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology. His academic interests span across disciplinary boundaries of social sciences, regional and urban studies and spatial planning and include a range of topics from the EU cohesion policy, governance and stakeholder participation, to urban climate change policies, energy transition and circular economy.

Marjolein Spaans

TuDelft

Marjolein Spaans

Marjolein Spaans is assistant professor of urban and regional planning at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (Delft University of Technology). She received her Masters at Wageningen University and her PhD at Delft University of Technology. Her research focuses on urban and regional development, territorial governance, national planning systems, integrated area development, project development, land policy and urban resilience. She has been involved in projects funded by ESPON, Dutch national ministries, provinces and local authorities and the private sector. She is also programme director of the master programme Geographical Information Management and Applications (GIMA), an interuniversity two-year master programme of University Utrecht, University Twente, Wageningen University and TU Delft which is offered as single degree by Utrecht University.

Marko Lovec

Central European University, Center for Policy Studies

Marko Lovec

Marko Lovec, is a Research Fellow at Centre for International Relations and Assistant Professor in International Relations at Faculty of Social Sciences of University of Ljubljana. For Cohesify, he is responsible with the case study and fieldwork in Slovenia.

Martin Gross

Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim

Martin Gross

Martin Gross studied Politics and Public Administration (Bachelor of Arts) at the University of Konstanz as well as History and Politics of the 20th Century (Master of Arts) at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. Since September 2012 he has been research associate and teaching assistant at the Chair of Political Science III, Comparative Government. Since March 2015 he is working in the project "Where Is My Party? Determinants of Voter Agreement about the Ideological Positions of Political Parties" located at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES). In July 2015, he has defended his dissertation with the title „Koalitionsbildungsprozesse auf kommunaler Ebene: Schwarz-Grün in deutschen Großstädten“ ("Coalition-building processes at the local level: Black-green in large German cities") at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, which was supervised by Prof. Dr. Torsten Oppelland. Since March 2016 he is working as post-doc researcher in the project ‘COHESIFY: The Impact of EU Cohesion Policy on European Identification’ at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research.

Nicolas Tsapatsoullis

Cyprus University of Technology

Nicolas Tsapatsoullis

Nicolas Tsapatsoulis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Internet studies at Cyprus University of Technology. He has graduated from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the National Technical University of Athens in 1994 and received his Ph.D degree, in Image Analysis and Synthesis, in 2000 from the same University. He is a member of the Technical Chambers of Greece and Cyprus and a member of IEEE Signal Processing and Communication societies. He has published more than 140 papers in international journals, book chapters and proceedings of international conferences (see ORCID). His research has been recognized by the international research community through more than 2500 independent citations (Scholar Google).

Nuria Fernández

RegioPlus

Nuria Fernández

Nuria Fernández has 10 years of experience in planning and evaluating European Funds programs. She has participated in various projects in the programming periods 2000-2006, 2007-2013 and 2014-2020. She holds a PhD in Economics
Role in COHESIFY Project: Senior expert in communication of Cohesion Policy

Roberta Capello

Politecnico di Milano

Roberta Capello

Full professor of Regional Economics at Politecnico of Milan, Faculty of Building Engineering.

President of the RSAI (Regional Science Association International).

Member of the European Organising Committee and Treasurer of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) (2000-2006). Member of the Coordination Committee of the Italian Section of the Regional Science Association. National Secretary of the Italian Section of the International Regional Science Association, 1995-98.

Editor in chief of the Italian Journal of Regional Science. Co-Editor of Letters in Spatial and Resource Science, Springer Verlag, Berlin. Member of the editorial board of the Annals of Regional Science and of the Revue d’Economie Régionale et Urbaine.

Author of a textbook in Regional Economics, published in Italian (Il Mulino, 2004), and in English (Routledge, 2007).

Visiting Research Fellow by the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies of the University of Newcastle (1988-1989). Visiting Professor alla Universitat Menendez Pelayo, Barcellona, Curso Magistral of “Advanced Urban Economics”, and Curso Magistral of “Regional Economics”.

First degree in Economics at Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milan, Italy. Ph.D. in Economics, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Roberto Rocco

TUDelft

Roberto Rocco

I am an Assistant Professor at the Cahir of Spatial Planning and Strategy of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of the Delft University of Technology, TU Delft. My research interests lie on regional planning and design, the governance of natural resources at the regional level, and tools for urban development and governance in the Global South, particularly the governance and the political meaning of informal urbanization.

I am originally an architect and urban planner graduate from FAU, the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo. I later followed post-graduate courses in spatial planning in Paris and Delft, where I obtained my doctoral degree with a thesis on the location patterns of large global enterprises in regional settings.

I teach courses at the European Master of Urbanism EMU as well as courses on research methodology, metropolitan planning and design and planning theory. I am interested in SPATIAL JUSTICE and GOVERNANCE as instruments that enable action to improve our cities and make them more livable and socially sustainable. 

I am the president of the Salzburg Congress on Urban Planning and Development, based in Austria. SCUPAD congregates academics and practitioners concerned with urban development in the Global South and has recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. SCUPAD promotes a big conference every year.

I am also board member of NALACS, the Netherlands Association on Latin American and Caribbean studies. NALACS mission is to gather and promote networking among academics and practitioners concerned with Latin America and the Caribbean working in the Netherlands.

[SPATIAL JUSTICE refers to the promotion of access to public goods, basic services, culture, economic opportunity and healthy environments through fair and inclusive spatial planning and management of urban and rural spaces and resources. This is crucial in order to promote more equitable and fair societies and to promote the full realization of

Stephan Heichel

Mannheim University

Stephan Heichel

Stephan Heichel studied political science, public law and modern history (Master of Arts) at Friedrich Schiller University of Jena where he graduated in 2003. From 2004 to 2011 he was a doctoral student and research associate at the University of Konstanz where he earned a doctoral degree (Ph.D. equivalent) in 2011. His dissertation investigated the impact of national institutional characteristics on environmental policy change in 24 OECD and transition countries between 1970 and 2000, also taking into account the European Union’s influence. From 2011 to 2014, he was a postdoctoral researcher and teacher at the Chair of Comparative Policy Analysis and Public Administration at Konstanz University. Here, he worked in an ERC-funded project ‘Comparative Analysis of Moral Policy Change’ (MORAPOL). In 2014, he resumed and in 2016 he completed project’s work as a post-doctoral researcher and teacher at the Geschwister-Scholl Department of Political Science at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (Chair of Empirical Theory of Politics). In 2016, he became a post-doctoral researcher and short-term lecturer at the same department. Since October 2017 he is working as a researcher in the project ‘COHESIFY: The Impact of EU Cohesion Policy on European Identification’ at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research.

Stephen Miller

University of Strathclyde

Stephen Miller

Stephen is a Researcher at the European Policies Research Centre (EPRC) at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He has an MA in Human Geography Research from Newcastle University and vocational research experience in the public, private and higher education sectors. At EPRC he has worked on a broad range of studies and evaluations for the European Commission, European Parliament and other institutions, including an evaluation of the long term impacts of Cohesion policy over 15 European regions (2013) and research into place-based territorial strategies supported by Cohesion policy (2017). He has a particular interest in the dynamics of regional innovation and the regional knowledge economy. Stephen has been involved in the COHESIFY project since October 2017, working mainly to deliver research insights for the North East England and Scotland regional case studies.

Vasiliki Triga

Cyprus University of Technology

Vasiliki Triga

Dr. Vasiliki Triga, (PhD, European University Institute) is currently Assistant Professor at the Cyprus University of Technology, Department of Communication and Internet Studies. Her research interests lie in the field of ICT/internet based political processes like Voting Advice Applications, southern politics and the economic crisis, political communication and the new media, social movements and online collective Identities and European referendums. She has published her research in various journals such as IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, International Journal of Electronic Governance, Revista de Ciencia Politica, Journal of Southern European Society and Politics etc. She is co-author of the book Referendums and the European Union: A Comparative Inquiry, published by Cambridge University Press in 2014.

Venetia Papa

Cyprus University of Technology

Venetia Papa

Venetia Papa, is an adjunct lecturer at the Dept. of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology and at the Dept. of Journalism, University of Cyprus, Cyprus. Her recent work focused on the construction of civic and collective identity within the contours of social movements and the role of Facebook in this process. She has published several scientific articles in the field of digital media, social movements and journalism. She is the co-authored of the book Mobilisations numériques: Politiques du conflit et technologies médiatiques (Les Presses des Mines, forthcoming June 2017)

Viktoriya Dozhdeva

European Policies Research Centre (University of Strathclyde)

Viktoriya Dozhdeva

Viktoriya Dozhdeva is a Researcher at EPRC. She has a BA in Regional Studies and Foreign Languages from Moscow State Linguistic University, where she studied the influence of European integration processes on Portuguese regional development patterns. She also has an MSc in Social and Political Sciences of the Environment from Radboud University Nijmegen and an MSc in European Spatial Planning and Regional Development from Blekinge Institute of Technology. Additionally, she has professional experience with EU transnational cooperation activities and projects evaluation at the Secretariat of the INTERREG North West Europe programme.

Since joining EPRC in early 2016, Viktoriya’s main research interests are EU Cohesion policy, European territorial cooperation, and regional policy in Portugal. She has worked on projects examining the unfolding cultural and creative potentials of European territories, administrative capacity in EU Cohesion policy, and the impact of Cohesion policy on European identification.

Wil Zonneveld

TuDelft

Wil Zonneveld

Wil Zonneveld, is a full professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. He received his Masters as well as his PhD in spatial planning at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on strategic planning at the regional and national level, the role of concepts and visions, the interplay between visioning and project decision-making and the Europeanisation of territorial governance through EU policies and law.

Advisory Board

An Advisory Board consisting of senior advisers with experience in Cohesion policy implementation, communications and European identity research will provide strategic advice, expertise and external perspectives on the management of the project and the specific activities and deliverables.

Dirk Ahner

EC Adviser, former Director-General of DG Regio

Agnes Monfret

Head of Communication, DG Regio

Wolfgang Petzold

Deputy Director, Committee of the Regions

Michela Giuffrida

MEP - Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats

Thomas Risse

Political Scientist (EU identity), Free University Berlin

Alena Sabelová

Director-General for Cohesion Policy, Slovak Republic

Niels Jørgen Thøgersen

Vice-President, Club of Venice, former Director of Communication