Members of the Pool of European Youth Researchers
Dragan Atanasov
youth work, youth policy, participation, volunteering
A youth work practitioner turned researcher, Dragan is equally engaged in conducting research, designing and delivering nonformal education activities, developing policy documents, and monitoring and evaluating programmes in the field of youth work. His research work is mostly related to youth work policy and practice, youth work recognition, youth work education and training, volunteering and nonformal education. Dragan has been part of the Macedonian national association of youth work providers since its establishment in 2013, both as a board member and as its Secretary General. As one of the pioneers in youth work policy in the country, he co-authored the first vocational standard and training for youth workers, the National Quality Standards for Youth Work, National Youth Work Portfolio and the Quality Standards for Youth Centers in North Macedonia. Dragan was one the experts contracted by the Youth Partnership for research related to the implementation of the European Youth Work Agenda.
Ondřej Bárta
youth participation, youth policy, non-formal learning, evaluation and impact research, youth volunteering
Ondřej is a freelance youth researcher and consultant whose assignments on national and international levels cover areas such as youth participation, youth policy, youth mobility, or volunteering. He supports youth participation processes (e.g., the EU Youth Dialogue), and he works as an expert with various international bodies. At the same time, he works in the area of evaluation and impact research, where he conducts both the macro level (youth policies) and the micro level (single projects) evaluations on both national and international levels, as well as writes open access publications. He appears regularly on various conferences and expert meetings where he tackles youth-related research findings. More information.
Samir Beharic
youth work, activism, youth policy, migration, student mobility, brain drain
Samir Beharic is an award-winning activist from Bosnia and Herzegovina and a PhD candidate at the Department of Geographic Migration and Transition Studies at the University of Bamberg in Germany. His research interests include youth work, international student migration, and brain circulation. His youth activism has been recognised by the OSCE, honoring him with the Max van der Stoel Award for his efforts to prevent the further ethnic segregation of schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Samir currently serves as President of the OCEANS Network, a global organisation of scholarship holders of EU-funded international mobility programmes. Previously, he served as a Lantos Congressional Fellow in the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C., and as a Schuman Trainee at the European Parliament in Brussels. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Sarajevo and his Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's Degree in Global Studies from the University of Vienna and the Leipzig University.
Anne-Cecile Caseau
inequalities, vulnerability, youth social policies, education, gender
Anne-Cécile is a researcher at the National Institute for Youth and Popular Education, based in Paris. Her work focuses on the vulnerable experiences of youth in France, through qualitative studies on student living conditions and access to housing. She holds a PhD in political science and gender studies from the University Paris 8, and her previous work has covered topics of migration, Roma rights, political participation, gender and precarious housing.
Igor Ciurea
participation, digitalisation, employment, entrepreneurship, youth work, volunteering
Igor is renowned for his expertise in youth-related research, public policy development, and project management. His work spans national and international projects focused on youth, human rights, and research, where he has produced significant research documents and analytical reports. His involvement in drafting policy recommendations showcases his dedication to youth needs, leveraging evidence-based approaches and collaborative efforts to address pressing issues in this domain.
Tomaž Deželan
youth participation, youth citizenship, quality youth work, youth mainstreaming, youth policy
Tomaž is a professor of political science, at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. His recent research covers citizenship of young people, political participation of youth, political institutions and youth, youth representation, quality in youth work and youth work organisations, youth programme evaluation, youth and political parties, citizenship education. He co-ordinated more than 20 EU and national research projects on youth, citizenship education and political participation, is a research partner of the Slovenian Erasmus+ Youth in Action National Agency, and regularly performs evaluations of youth and citizenship policies, programmes and projects at national and international levels. He acts as expert/consultant/policy advisor to several national governments, the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE; OSCE ODIHR), the European Youth Forum (EYF), the International IDEA, the European Commission, the EACEA, Council of Europe, ICF, WYG etc. His bibliography includes more than 50 peer reviewed articles in international journals, more than 30 chapters in edited volumes and authored or co-authored more than 20 scientific monographs.
Salome Dolidze
participation, social inclusion, gender, migration, youth policy, youth organizations, youth transition to work
Salome is an experienced researcher specialising in youth issues. She is pursuing a PhD in sociology at TSU and her research is focused on exploring the factors that impact NEET youths' transition into adulthood. She has successfully led over 20 projects at the Caucasus Research Resource Center and collaborated with organisations like UN Women, IOM and World Bank, exploring range of topics relevant to young people. In addition, she has worked independently with organisations such as YFJ, DUF and NCYOG, conducting country-specific analyses, as well as Europe-wide studies. These efforts have provided valuable insights and evidence to inform policy decisions related to empowering young people, strengthening youth organisations, and developing evidence-based youth policies. Salome's contributions have advanced youth research in Georgia and influenced youth policy development at national and European levels. Her work aims to elevate the voices of young people, advocating for their inclusion and contributing to positive change.
Ela S. Evliyaoğlu
mental health, youth participation, human-rights based psychology
Ela is a researcher and a practicing clinical psychologist in Türkiye. She holds two master’s degrees in clinical psychology and political science. She is the co-founder of The Network of Psychosocial Support in Civil Society that aims to bring mental health workers together and enhance human rights-based approach in mental health. She gives speeches and trainings on how politics and policies effects well-being of individuals and social groups. Her focus is the connection between policies, laws and mental health and well-being besides political participation and representation of young people especially young women. Currently she is working at the Youth Organizations Forum (GoFor) as programmes director.
Teresa Ferreira
youth work, work and working conditions, mental health, youth Participation, youth policy
Teresa is a PhD candiadte in sociology. For more than ten years she has worked in public institutions specifically in the youth field. Through her work experience as a former head of a municipality youth department and of a strategic planning unit at the National Commission for the Promotion of Rights and the Protection of Children and Young People, she developed knowledge and understanding of several subjects, particularly on youth participation, social inclusion, youth volunteering and youth mobility, but also children’s and young people rights.
The most recent research study she was involved in was about young adults’ future concerns, mental health, and well-being during the lockdown in Portugal. As a PhD candidate in sociology, studying burnout in public institutions, addressing work and public organisation topics, she is particularly interested in working conditions and work-related suffering, from an organisational and structural perspective, and in its relations with mental health and overall well-being.
Martin Galevski
socio-political participation of youth, student agency, EU youth and education policies, youth mainstreaming, human capital, migration
Martin holds a PhD in education from the University of Oxford and an MPhil degree in politics, development and democratic education from the University of Cambridge. He has more than 15 years of experience as a researcher and consultant, specialising in the fields of youth and education. His research interest covers areas such as socio-political participation of youth, student agency and social movements, youth mainstreaming, and human capital formation. As a consultant Martin works closely with several international agencies such as the World Bank, UNESCO (IIEP), UNICEF, UNDP, WFD and others. In 2022, he served as the lead expert for the development of the National Youth Strategy 2003-2027 in North Macedonia; and served as lead focal point for the preparation of the Human Capital Strategy 2024-2030 in the same country. He is also the author of the longest running quantitative youth representative survey in North Macedonia (with four editions since 2019, and a forthcoming fifth edition in 2025).
Federike Hofmann-van de Poll
European youth policy, multi-level and cross-sectoral governance, youth mainstreaming, youth work, participation and active citizenship
Frederike is senior researcher at the Centre for European Youth Policy at the German Youth Institute (Munich) and a freelance researcher and consultant in the field of youth (work) policy. As a political scientist, her research focusses on youth policy and youth work governance at the European, national, regional and local levels. Her recent publications concern European youth (work) policy perspectives on young people (in YOUNG, 2023), German EU youth policy co-ordination (in Journal of Contemporary European Research, 2022), and the transfer of European youth policy in local youth policy (in Youth and Globaliyation, 2021 and Youth&Policy, 2019). As a freelance researcher and consultant, she advises local, national and European organisations on the development of youth (work) policy. She is a member of the German Academic Network on Youth Work and the German Child and Youth Welfare Association – AGJ Working Committee on child and youth (welfare) policy in Europe.
Dora Giannaki
youth radicalisation/delinquency, European youth policies, history of youth work, security and justice issues
Dora is a political scientist (BA, MA, MA, PhDca) and security and justice expert. She has been conducting research on youth issues for more than 10 years, publishing essays, articles, and chapters in relevant books. Since 2009 she has been collaborating on a regular basis, as a research associate and as a political and policy advisor, with members of the Greek Parliament and with governmental bodies including the Greek General Secretariat for Youth-Ministry of Education. Among other roles, Dora was also a member of the research team which drafted the national policy strategy ‘Youth ’17-’27: Strategic Framework for the Empowerment of Youth’ (published by the National Printing House in 2018). She is currently the Secretary General of the Hellenic Political Science Association (HPSA) and research associate at the Centre for Political Research of Panteion University, Athens, Greece.
Enrique Hernández Diez
youth rights, youth participation, youth public law, youth policies, civil society, participatory democracy
Enrique is an associate professor of administrative and European public law at the University of Extremadura, Spain. His academic work spans youth rights, the participation of youth, children, and students, youth public law, youth policies, participatory democracy, and civil society engagement. His PhD thesis (2021) focused on the legal frameworks of youth participation in Spain and Europe (at EU and Council of Europe levels). He has been involved in numerous research projects in these areas, as well as he is the author and co-author of peer-reviewed articles, chapters in edited volumes, and scientific monographs. He is commissioned by public institutions and youth organizations across Spain and at national level to report and develop new legal regulations concerning youth policies and participatory democracy. With over 20 years of engagement in NGOs, he chaired the Youth Council of Extremadura (2012-2016) and served as the Vice-Chair of the National Youth Council of Spain (2014-2016).
Gilda Isernia
student rights, labour rights, youth work, democracy and participation
Gilda holds a BA (Hons) in African Studies and Swahili at SOAS, University of London. She is based in Brussels, where she works for the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU) as a projects and policy coordinator. Her research, focusing on democracy, student rights and youth work aims to support and strengthen the capacity of unions, social movements and similar structures in harnessing the power of collective organising for social change.
Etch Kalala
integrated youth policy, policy analysis, multi-level and transnational approach, comparative sociology, youth policy, youth work
Etch, a former youth organisations leader for over a decade, joined the Arène social sciences research lab (UMR CNRS 6051) in 2017 as a doctoral researcher. Nearing PhD completion in political science at Rennes University, his focus is integrated youth policy. His research spans history, policy problems, governance, implementation, cooperation, evaluation, and institutional practices. Embracing a multi-sited, transnational approach, it incorporates multilevel analysis (local to European), alongside case studies in France (PIA jeunesse) and Finland (Ohjaamo). His methodology is diverse: ethnography, interviews, photography, focus groups, and historical archives. Etch also has lecturing experience at the French School of Public Health (EHESP) and the University of Rennes, He holds Master’s degrees in Public Administration, and Youth Policy and Practice. His publications include Politiques intégrées de jeunesse: difficultés et leviers d'action and Lost in Translation – Why Aren’t Integrated Youth Policies Implemented in Practice? co-authored with Siurala L. (2019, 2023).
Marko Kovacic
European youth policy, youth work, civic education, non-formal youth participation
Marko is an acclaimed public policy expert specialising in youth policy. With over 15 years of experience in academia, research, teaching, and consulting, he advises international, national, and local organisations on policy development. Marko is also an accomplished project manager, evaluator, published author, and former youth worker. He is passionate about espresso, social change, and democratic practices. Research areas: youth policy, youth work, youth participation, European dimension of youth work and policy.
Sintija Lase
youth work, youth policy, nonformal education, digital youth work, entrepreneurship education
Sintija has been engaged in youth field for about 20 years, taking part and organising European youth projects and establishing an NGO to provide opportunities for other young people. Since 2011 she is the member of the trainers' pool for the National Agency in Latvia, developing and delivering training programmes for youth workers, volunteers and organisations. She has collaborated with SALTO and other National Agencies. Sintija has been a guest lecturer at 4 universities developing and delivering several youth field-related study modules for social workers and youth affair specialists. She has consulted 20 municipalities on youth work development and trained more than 50 municipal youth affair specialists in Latvia. During the last six years Sintija has transferred from practical youth work consultations into the youth field research measuring the impact of entrepreneurship education, mapping digital youth work and nonformal education, looking at international youth learning mobility and youth policy monitoring, and exploring youth work education possibilities.
Anna Lavizzari
gender, political participation, activism, social inclusion
Anna is a Ramón y Cajal Research Fellow at the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology at the University Complutense of Madrid and Research Fellow at the Centre on Social Movement Studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence. She holds a PhD in political science from the School of Politics and International Relations at University of Kent. Her research focuses on political participation and behaviour with a notable attention to social movements and protest politics among young people. She is particularly interested in gender approaches to political participation, how gender dynamics play a role in the way protests unfold, social movements build their strategies, alliances, claims as well as in the biographical trajectories of young activists. Beyond academia, she is involved in projects as a research consultant for different civil society organisations.
Irina Lonean
youth policy, youth mainstreaming, policy evaluation, youth test, inclusion, participation
Irina started volunteering in the youth field when she was 20 years old (in 2006), while studding political science. In 2010, during her PhD studies focused on public policy for public administration, she started working with the Centre for Sustainable Community Development and other NGOs conducting youth work and participating in the evaluation of their activities and projects. Since 2015 she has been part of the teams conducting the evaluation of the Youth Employment Initiative in Romania, UNICEF initiatives promoting well-being and support services for children and young people in Romania, Moldova and Turkey, NGOs and public initiatives to develop Romanian youth policies. Her main research focus is the evaluation of youth policies: she is carrying out policy and programmes evaluations and promoting and doing research on the use of evaluation on policy development and reforms.
Sofia Magopoulou
participation, inclusive communities, bottom-up policy making, intersectionality
Sofia, with an MSc in governance and regional development and a BSc in political sciences from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, specialises in research at the intersection of political sciences and regional development. With experience as an assistant researcher at the Laboratory of Applied Political Research and as a youth researcher for various European organisations, she is deeply involved in exploring youth engagement, European policy frameworks, and societal impacts. She has been an active volunteer in the European Youth Parliament Network since 2013 and has organised multiple events, both local and international including the Digital Energy Forum (2020). Sofia has participated in more than 25 events of the Network all over Europe over the years. She has been awarded as an event organiser and speaker in the #ThisTimeIamVotingCampaign of the European Parliament and was a young social media multiplier on disinformation and fake news. Sofia currently works in research and innovation projects funded by the EU (Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, Life).
Vesela Mareva
youth work, youth policy, youth organisations, non-formal learning, youth participation
Vesela holds a PhD in social sciences. Her areas of expertise include youth work, non-formal learning, youth social inclusion, youth policies development, etc. She is an experienced practitioner in the field of youth work as a youth worker and sirector of the International Youth Centre in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. Vesela is a member of a variety of working groups at national and international levels.
Tijana Milosevic
digitalisation and AI, mass media, technology and youth, youth policy, human rights education (dignity), participation and citizenship
Tijana's work centres on children and young people's digital media use and the implications for their dignity and well-being; as well as for digital policy, online safety and digital citizenship. Most recently, she examined Artificial Intelligence-based moderation on social media platforms, children and young people's perceptions of proactive moderation and how such technology impacts their rights. Her current focus is on developing a Dignity theory-based framework to understand young people's offline and online communication and relationships. She has researched online risks and harms, including cyberbullying, especially in the context of social media platforms' policies with respect to online safety. As part of the EU Kids Online research network, she conducted survey and qualitative research about children and young people's digital media use and how it affects their self-reported life satisfaction and well-being, among others topics.
Daniele Morciano
youth participation, youth work, youth-led innovation and change, evaluation research
Daniele is a cultural and educational sociologist currently working as a researcher at the University of Bari in Italy. His research interests are mainly in the field of youth participation, youth work and youth policies. The evaluation of youth participation in open-access youth work, the history of youth work, the professional development and recognition of youth workers and the evaluation of the impact of youth work on young people's lives are the main research areas he has been involved in, also in the framework of European projects funded by Erasmus-. Currently, he is particularly interested in research on youth participation in culture-based regeneration projects (both in urban and rural areas), focusing on the relationship between emerging youth cultures, community centres and local development processes at different levels, e.g. cultural change, social innovation, commoning practices, partnership work with schools, etc.
Dan Moxon
participation, social inclusion, youth policy, youth mainstreaming
Dan is a researcher and practitioner specialising in inclusive youth participation with over 25 years’ experience. His research focuses on how children and young people's participation can influence policy and practice, as well as the development of participatory structures and processes. Originally a youth worker at local and regional levels in the north-western England, he now works throughout Europe and beyond supporting a variety of organisations to develop their approach to youth participation. In 2017, he was invited to re-develop the consultation process behind the EU Youth Dialogue. This engages nearly 50,000 young people from across the EU and was instrumental in developing the new European Youth Goals. He was recently the lead consultant drafting the strategy for enhancing youth participation in democratic life through the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes on behalf of SALTO Participation & Information.
Gökay Özerim
migration, intercultural relations, gender, social development, student mobility
Gökay is the Chair of the Department of International Relations at Yaşar University and the Director of the EU Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (EU Research Center). He completed his undergraduate studies on Department of International Relations and his doctoral degree in European studies. In 2010, the British Government awarded the Chevening scholarship, allowing him to work as a visiting researcher at the Center for Migration, Policy, and Society at the University of Oxford. In 2014, he worked as a visiting academic at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2019, he was awarded a Jean Monnet Chair on "Migration in Turkey-European Relations" by the European Commission, and in 2022, he was awarded as the coordinator of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Diversity Studies. He has been involved in several national and international projects, and he has published extensively on topics related to international migration, youth, security, and European integration, both nationally and internationally.
Nadiia Pavlyk
social pedagogy, non-formal education, research of youth, shared reading, wartime books for children and young people
As a professor at the Department of Social Technologies at Zhytomyr Ivan Franko State University (Ukraine), she works with future social workers in the areas of research methodology, human rights and non-formal education for excluded groups. As a researcher for the Council of Europe project "Youth for Democracy in Ukraine", she works on the analysis of youth work in Ukraine according to the approaches and standards of the Council of Europe. As a former researcher AUFF-Ukraine, Aarhus Institute for Advanced Study (Denmark), she worked in co-operation with TrygFonden Centre for Child Research on shared reading and its impact on social inclusion. As a researcher in the project "PUBLISH: Children's Books in the Russia-Ukraine War", Department of Global Studies (Denmark), she works in an interdisciplinary team of researchers analysing the social aspects of book making and reading; children's and young people's literature as a factor influencing well-being during wartime.
Tuuli Pitkänen
mental health, addiction, services, well-being, youth perspective, digitalisation
Tuuli Pitkänen works as research manager at the Finnish Youth Research Society (FYRS). She has a long career as senior researcher on well-being, substance use and youth issues. She participates actively in national and international networks. Her long list of both academic and other publications cover a wide range of topics on several fields. Currently, she leads an Erasmus+ project (KA220-youth) called Crisis Help and Assistance for youth during challenging Times (CHAT-YOUTH) and the work page Youth as service users in a consortium project called Out of despair and funded by the Strategic Research Council in Finland. At FYRS, they aim to conduct high quality research in close collaboration with the field and decision making. They have close cooperation with the ministries and universities and in the field of youth work. They conduct research to highlight the youth perspective.
Francisco Simões
social development, social support, youth participation, youth policies, rural young people
Francisco has a PhD in psychology from the University of Coimbra. He is an assistant researcher and a full member of the Centre for Social Research and Intervention at the University Institute of Lisbon. He was the Chair of the COST Action Rural NEET Youth Network funded by the European Commission (2019-2024) and the Principal Investigator of the project Track-In funded by the Youth Employment Fund of the EEA & Norway Grants. Currently, he is an appointed member of the coordination group of the EU Rural Pact. He has previously worked in the third sector as a youth worker and project manager. He has authored and co-authored more than 70 international peer-reviewed papers, chapters and reports on young people’s social inequalities, social development, social support, mentoring, mobilities, or well-being, with an emphasis on rural contexts and a particular interest on rural NEETs.
Bram Spruyt
intergroup relations, social identity, prejudice, survey research, social inequality
Bram Spruyt is an associate professor of sociology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium). He is also one of the co-supervisors of the Flemish Youth Research Platform, the Flemish interdisciplinary co-operation between three academic research groups initiated by the Flemish government to stimulate systematic and interdisciplinary attention for youth research. Bram Spruyt has much expertise in survey research and quantitative analysis. He is interested and has ample experience in research into social identities, education, social inequality, and intergroup relationships. His most recent research projects focused on topics like truancy, education-based identities, reception education for newly arrived migrants, and voluntary associations and youth work.
Amy Stapleton
transitions, participation, migration, social inclusion, youth work/ policy
Amy Stapleton ties an NGO practitioner background with her social research expertise which centres primarily on youth transitions/participation, migration, social inclusion, marginalisation, nonformal/human rights education, and youth policy/ work. Amy recently completed her PhD on the transition to adulthood of unaccompanied youth in the School of Social Work and Social Policy in Trinity College Dublin. Currently, Amy works within the Irish National Contact Point of the European Migration Network (EMN). For several years, Amy has worked as a project manager and researcher on several international, national and local commissioned projects, actively contributing to evidence based European policy making in the field of youth and migration. In addition to PEYR, Amy is also a member of the Council of Europe Youth Department Trainers Pool and the Council of Europe Youth for Democracy Project in Ukraine Researcher Pool.
Veronica Stefan
digital transformation, Artificial Intelligence, governance, competences and curriculum, cross-sectoral cooperation
Veronica is a professional with almost two decades of experience, working at the intersection of youth, education, policy and new technologies. She has been engaged in a variety of international initiatives, from research to public policy, capacity building and project management. Her recent activity includes contributions to topics such as: digital policies, participation in AI governance, AI literacy, research on the impact of new technologies on young people, development and assessment of digital competences in formal and non-formal sectors. Veronica has worked for different stakeholders, from the Council of Europe, UN agencies, European Union bodies, to national and international private and public entities. Since 2021 she has led a series of international partnerships related to youth participation and digital transformation on behalf of the Estonian National Agency for Erasmus+ and the European Solidary Corps (HARNO).
Jenni Tikkanen
life course, education, equality, comparative education, education policy, youth policy
Jenni is a university lecturer actively engaged in research in the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning and Education (CELE) at the Department of Education of the University of Turku, Finland. She holds a PhD in education and her interdisciplinary research interests and expertise can be found at the crossroads of youth research, sociology of education, life course research, and international comparative education. Thus, her research focuses heavily on different aspects of young people’s schooling and education, transitions from education into the labour market, life course formation in late modern societies, disadvantage and vulnerability in youth, education and youth policies, as well as educational and social equality and equity in Europe and beyond.
Nadia Tjahja
youth participation in internet governance, multistakeholderism, youth work, institutions
Nadia Tjahja is a PhD researcher at the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies and the Brussels School of Governance at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels working on the topic “Meaningful participation in global and regional multistakeholder institutions”, specifically working on youth participation in internet governance. Furthermore, she is the co-ordinator of the YOUth Dialogue on Internet Governance (YOUthDIG), which is the European Youth Internet Governance Forum, and the pre-event of the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG). Nadia facilitates youth activities and speaks on youth participation in internet governance. She sits on several boards and working groups including the IGF Youth Track, the Youth Advisory Board of EURid among others.
Neringa Tumėnaitė
meaningful youth participation, development justice, climate action
Neringa is a PhD candidate at SOAS University of London and a Fulbright Schuman fellow at the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights, Harvard University. Her research delves into the role of meaningful youth participation in advancing climate action and development justice. In addition, Neringa is the director of a social enterprise, Humanity Consulting, which promotes dialogue in the field of youth among policy makers and civic society in Asia, Europe and Africa. Previously, Neringa worked in Myanmar for the EU’s External Action Service and served on the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe, focusing on youth mobility, Roma rights and North-South cooperation. Neringa holds a BA in creative industries from Vilnius Tech and an MSc in violence, conflict, and development from SOAS, where she investigated the role of the media in furthering structural discrimination against the Rohingya in Myanmar.
Geena Whiteman
entrepreneurship, employability, participation, gender, education
Geena is a UK-based researcher finishing off her PhD in youth digital-social entrepreneurship in the Western Balkans. She has an interest in youth employability and entrepreneurship which spans the last five years of academic and think tank research, working with organisations like the European Student Think Tank, the European Training Fund and Kosovo Foundation for Open Society to conduct research in these areas. She has developed training programmes and facilitated numerous workshops and hackathons to train young people in social entrepreneurship.