Natalia Chaban - Professor at the University of Canterbury, Media and Communication, Faculty of Arts.
Professor Natalia Chaban focuses her interdisciplinary research on cognitive and semiotic aspects of political and media discourses, image and perceptions studies within the EU and IR contexts, and public diplomacy and political communication. Natalia widely publishes including articles in high impact journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies, Cooperation and Conflict, Journal of European Integration, Foreign Policy Analysis, Mobilities, Comparative European Politics. Professor Chaban is a twice awarded Jean Monnet Chair, President of Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand, co-editor of the peer-reviewed "Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies" and leader of a number of transnational research projects supported by the European Commission and NATO.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
BAES Open Lecture 'The “battle of narratives” in an uncertain world: Communicating Ukraine and its historical and cultural heritage in Western and non-Western media'.
Dr. hab. Marcin Kościelniak, prof. UJ - cultural scientist, theater scholar. Professor at Jagiellonian University. Editor of "Didaskalia. Theatre Gazette." Recently, he published the book "Egoists. The Third Way in Polish Culture of the 1980s" [„Egoiści. Trzecia droga w kulturze polskiej lat 80.”] (2018) and co-edited the volume "Self-Censorship and Censorship. New Perspectives" (2024). As part of an NCN grant, he is conducting a research project titled "Cultural and Political History of Abortion in Poland 1956-1993" [„Autocenzura i cenzura. Nowe ujęcia”]; the book "Abortion and Democracy: A Counter-History of Poland 1956-1993" [„Kulturowa i polityczna historia aborcji w Polsce 1956-1993”] (premiere: November 15, 2024) is its first part.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Dr. hab. Marcin Kościelniak, UJ professor, delivered a lecture entitled: "We Are All the Church". Abortion in Poland 1956-1993
Sonia Lucarelli is Professor at the University of Bologna, member of the Board of Directors of the Forum on the Problems of Peace and War and of the Institute of International Affairs. She is responsible for Unibo of the Memorandum between the Unibo and NATO Allied Command Transformation, and the representative of Unibo in the Consortium Europaeum. Lucarelli has been Resident Member of the Bologna Institute for Advanced Studies, and Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute. Her areas of expertise include the EU foreign policy and external image, European security, NATO, European identity and Foreign Policy, Migration and Global Justice. She is Team Leader in the project GLOBUS: Reconsidering European Contributions to Global Justice (Horizon 2020); and has been Lead Scientist in the project PREDICT (NATO grant); in the Network of Excellence GARNET (Perceptions on War and Peace & the role of EUEU VI FP) and in the Research project EU-GRASP (EU VII FP). She has also received grants for individual research form NATO, the Volkswagen Stiftung, the Ministry of foreign Affairs and IAI. Her latest book is: Cala il sipario sull'ordine liberale? Crisi di un sistema che ha cambiato il mondo (2020).
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Round table 'Perceptions on War and Peace & the role of EU'
Werner Scholtz is the Head of School and Professor of Global Environmental Law. His research interest lies in the field of international environmental law, in particular climate change as well as wildlife welfare law.
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Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Prof. Werner Scholtz delivered three lectures as part of the course Green Revolution(s) in Europe.
Her research focuses mainly on the relationship between space and social identities. A qualitative researcher, she has published on qualitative methodologies, namely on the use of the interview. She has published extensively on heritage, tourism, migrations, ethnic urban enclaves and museum displays. She has also developed work on visual representation, having published on anonymous photography and on documentary.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Prof. Paula Mota Santos as part of the Jagiellonian University Visiting Professorship program taught the course: 'Technologies of the self: Portugal and the representation of the Nation in museum-like spaces' (4 ECTS)
Screenwriter, director, and film producer. Author of multiple award-winning documentaries, cultural events, and promotional spots. Head of promotion for World Youth Day Kraków 2016 and indoor concert tours. She has given lectures at Jagiellonian University and as a visiting professor at Roman universities. Author of monographs and articles on contemporary culture. Twice a scholarship holder of the Foundation for Polish Science and the Mellon Foundation - American Academy in Rome.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Dr. Joanna Zając conducts field classes: 'Multimedia Means of Expression and Communication for Building Personal Image and Social Campaigns'
Ajla Škrbić is an associate professor of public international law from Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 2021 to 2023, she was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Law at the Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2023, she has been working at the Technische Universität Dresden, where she teaches several courses at the Chair of International Law, European Law and Public Law.
Her research interests include public international law, human rights, transitional justice, and democracy. Beyond academia, she frequently provides expert consultations to international and non-governmental organizations within her field, including the Council of Europe and the European Commission.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Prof. Ajla Škrbić delivered a guest lecture entitled: The Balkans Today: Navigating Justice, Memory, and Post-Conflict Realities
Jasper Snoeys (°1999) is a PhD student at KU Leuven’s Cultural History since 1750 research group. He graduated as Master of History at KU Leuven in 2021. For his master's thesis, he studied the experiences and emotions of Flemish collaborators after World War II. In 2022, he obtained the Master in Journalism at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel with a master's thesis on representations of the press as the fourth estate in films. Afterwards, he started as a scientific collaborator at the research group Cultural History since 1750. There, he studied the theories and methods involved in research on the experiences of heritage tourism under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Stynen. Besides, he published in leading reference works (the Digitale Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse beweging) and academic journals (WT). Between 2022 and 2024, he also worked parttime at VRT, the Flemish public broadcaster, as an editor at Radio 1, Radio 2 and VRT NWS.
Since October 2024, he has continued his research on the emotional and multisensory experiences of heritage tourism in Belgium as a PhD researcher, under the title Familiar journeys. Heritage tourism in Belgium as an emotional and embodied experience. He is also co-editor of Cultuurgeschiedenis.be, the blogsite of the research group Cultural History since 1750 aimed at a wide audience, and of Contemporanea, an online journal for contemporary Belgian history. His main interests are heritage experiences, (the theorization of) heritage, identities and memory cultures.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Jasper Snoeys delivered a guest lecture entitled: 'Sensory experiences of heritage'
Vlada Stanković is professor of Byzantine Studies, head of the Chair for Byzantine Studies at the University of Belgrade and Adjunct Professor at the European University Cyprus. His areas of specialization include the period of the Komnenian dynasty, church-state relations in the middle Byzantine period, and the mediaeval and modern Balkans, with more recent publications ‘Kinship, Orthodoxy and Political Ideology: The Byzantines and the Balkans after the Catastrophe of 1204’; ‘Changes in Identity and Ideology in the Byzantine World in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century: The Case of Serbia’, in: Y. Stouraitis (ed.), Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval Roman World, Edinburgh; and ‘Death in Byzantium. Reflecting on the Byzantine Concept of Death and Its Place in the Mentality and Identity of the Byzantines’, in V. Stanković (ed.), Death, Illness, Body and Soul in Writ-ten and Visual Culture in Byzantium and Late Medieval Balkans, Belgrade 2021. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ in 2014/15, and is the founder and editor-in-chief of the series Byzantium: A European Empire and Its Legacy, for Lexington Books [now Bloomsbury Academic Publishing], USA.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Prof. Vlada Stanković delivered a guest lecture entitled: 'Balkan Obsession with the Borders? Imaginary Borders, the Borders of Yesterday, of Today and of Tomorrow in the Political Culture and Identity Politics in Modern Balkans'.
Csaba Törő, visiting Visegrad Fellow in the Spring semester of 2025 at the Institute of European Studies teaching the course on “The practice of EU external relations: legal, political and policy contours”. He has been an associate professor since 2010 (currently on academic leave since February 2019 because of his diplomatic service abroad) at the Faculty of Law of the Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary (Budapest) and was in charge of that Faculty as its Dean from December 2014 until January 2019. In addition, he was an adjunct professor at the Budapest Campus of McDaniel College (Maryland, USA) from 2007 to 2018, an associate fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Studies (2013-2022) in Vienna and also a senior research fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs (2009-2014) in Budapest.
Since 2019, he has been on a special diplomatic assignment (with the rank of ambassador) as a Hungarian EU integration adviser at the Ministry of European Affairs of Montenegro in Podgorica.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Prof. Csaba Törő taught the course: The Practice of EU External Relations: Legal, Political and Policy Contours (20 h)
Spyridon S. Kogas is an independent consultant for European Cultural Heritage and Education.
He studied Sociology and Economic theories at the Bristol University of West England. With the European project Digital Humanitas Learning, in 2013, he was a pioneer, designed for the first time in Greece digital humanities products at the level of Higher education, the first entitled: "The symbolism of the journey to the West, from Homer's Odyssey to Dante's Divine Comedy" and the second one "The City of Rome as a Concept in European Art".
He is the co-founder and director of the non-profit organization Imagine Heritage which is active in Europe in the fields of Culture and Education, be part of the civil society organisations internationally.
He is the founder and director of the Pan-European consortium "Heritage Future", which consists of organizations for Culture and Education from ten European countries. Representative in Greece of the International Art Non profit organization “European Cultural Center” based in Venice.
In addition, he is the coordinator at the European level of the World non profit organization for education “Edheroes”, leader of the newly established Edheroes Greece Hub.
Member of the International Research Network on Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy of Education “Foreign Object”, a network supported by M.I.T. and in which he participates as an analyst of Philosophy and Science fiction.
Strategic partner on European Cultural Tourism for “Fondazione Destination Florence” , the official organism of Municipality of Florence.
Editor-in-chief and co-editor of the international digital space "Thrausma", a Science, Art and Philosophy project with an emphasis on the relationship of Humanism & Post-humanism.
A writer on European Cultural Identity and its institutions, this year he is publishing his work in Springer ,“The European Heritage Contract: Turning our Symbolic Bonds in Civic Institutions”.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Spyridon S. Kogas delivered a guest lecture entitled: 'In the Value of Civic Education: Lessons from the European History'
Angelina Stanojoska, Ph.D. is a Full Professor in Criminology and Basic Criminalistics Theory at the Faculty of Law, University “St. Kliment Ohridski” – Bitola, North Macedonia. She graduated from the Police Academy - Skopje (2008) and received her MSc in Criminology and Criminalistics (2011) and her Ph.D. in Security Sciences both at the Faculty of Security - Skopje (2014). Stanojoska is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar Alumni, and during 2021, she has been researching at the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at UMSL, USA, about GST and substance abuse. She has also won the prestigious Chevening Western Balkans Cybersecurity Fellowship in 2023. Stanojoska is the acting Vice-Dean for Science and International cooperation at the Faculty of Law.
She is the author of three Criminology university textbooks, one monograph about criminological theories, two about the execution of criminal sanctions in North Macedonia, and a significant number of scientific articles and research reports. Her expertise is in female criminality, violent crimes, the treatment of incarcerated females, and online gender-based violence. Beside this, as an alumni, during 2023 and 2024, Stanojoska has been the project coordinator of the “DiCapSIW: Strengthening the Digital Capabilities and Skills of Incarcerated Women in North Macedonia” project funded by the US Embassy in Skopje as part of the AIEF 2023, and the “Empowering Students to Stop Gender-Based Violence” funded by the British Embassy in Skopje as part of the CAPF 2024.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Angelina Stanojoska delivered a guest lecture entitled: 'Gender-based violence in cyberspace: EU legal framework and future challenges'
Assoc. Prof. Nikolina (Nina) Tsvetkova, PhD, has been involved in teaching and teacher training, syllabi and material design, intercultural learning, using ICTs and the European dimension in education, Europeanisation and internationalisation of education over the past 25 years. She has authored a number of research papers, book chapters and a monograph in the above areas.
She is an Associate Professor at the European Studies Department at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Faculty of Philosophy, and currently Head of Department. She teaches ESP (English for Specific Purposes), Intercultural Communication, and Project Terminology to bachelor and master students. Currently, she is involved in researching doctoral education, citizenship education and young people’s democratic culture in a European and a global perspective. She is also supervising doctoral students working in the area of European identity, multilingualism, language and educational policies.
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Prof. Nikolina Tsvetkova delivered a guest lecture entitled: 'Fostering Intercultural Citizenship and Civic Engagement in Young People'.
Nicolò Fasola is Roberto Ruffilli Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Russian foreign policy at the University of Bologna. He is also academic tutor for the MA East European & Eurasian Studies.
Dr Fasola's current areas of interest are: Russian military thought; Russia's foreign policy; as well as NATO's defence and cooperative security policies.
Dr Fasola holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham. He was adjunct professor at the University of Salford, visiting researcher at Saint Petersburg State University, the University of Jena, the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, and the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. Moreover, Fasola was an Eisenhower Fellow at the NATO Defense College (NDC) and served at NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).
In 2025, Dr Fasola was nominated one of the most promising early career researchers in the Social Sciences by the Higher Academy of Sciences
Activities at the Institute of European Studies:
Dr Nicolò Fasola delivered a guest lecture entitled: 'Fostering Intercultural Citizenship and Civic Engagement in Young People'. 'Russia-EU relations through the lens of emotions: an evolution'.