Speakers and Moderators
Sociology Research Institute, HAS, Budapest
Judit Acsády was born in Budapest in 1964. Completed her studies at ELTE University, Budapest on Sociology English and Hungarian. She attended the postgraduate courses abroad: ACCESS Program at the University of Amsterdam in 1991, and ATELIER Program at EHESS, Paris in 1995. After her studies she worked a few years as a freelancer, teaching, giving courses, doing research, translating, interpreting. She was active in civil groups, was founding member of the Feminist Network (1990) and was a co-editor of its journal. She has been employed by the Sociology Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 1995. Gained her PhD degree in 2005. Title of Disseration: „Emancipation and Identity”. Her research works includes: history of feminist thought, women’s movements in Hungary in the XIX-XXth century, women’s social position after the transition, representation of gender in public life, share of domestic responsibilities, meaning of home for elderly people, labour circumstances in multinational companies. She gives courses as guest lecturer at different departments of universities. She presents her findings at conferences and publications. She is a mother of an 11 year old boy. She is widowed since 2002 and raises him alone.
Since 1996 I work as a freelance journalist in major bosnian newspapers such as Slobodna Bosna, Nezavisne novine and Start BiH. From 2003 I am a director of a bosnian nongovernmental organization INFOHOUSE and a freelance journalist. Prior of this I was actively involved in developing the journalism profesional standards in BH, through my work as a advisor/trainer in IREX ProMedia and in nongovernmental organizations capacity building through my engagement at International Rescue Committee.
(Project assistant)- University Teaching Assisstant, Faculty of Journalism, University of Bucharest.
PhD student in Political Science at the National School for Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, with a thesis on gender and political interests in nowadays Romania, teaching assistant at the Faculty of Journalism, University of Bucharest, and president of FILIA: Centre for Curricular Development and Gender Studies. The major studies published focuses on: feminist political theory, gender studies and have as main themes: gender political interests, women's political representation, reconciliation between work and family life, conflicts between modern and postmodern feminism. Among them: Gender and Political Interests (2008, co-author), Equal Partners. Equal Competitors (2007, coord.), Open Doors for Women in Romanian Politics (2007, coord.), Gender and Daily Life (2007, co-author), Gender and Power. Lion's share in Romanian Politics (editor, 2006), etc.
Is Professor of economics at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and teaches macroeconomics and growth theory. He was a Woodrow Wilson Center Scholar, Washington D.C. in the early nineties and also taught economics for 10 years as a visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest. He has recently completed a research project on economic inequality and wage differentials and another on entrepreneurial deficits. His publication and research interests include the Croatian economy, economic growth and convergence including regional disparities, economic inequality and especially wage dispersion and measurement issues, political economy of transition, economic policy especially financing education, labour markets, entrepreneurship, He has contributed to numerous edited volumes and written articles in journals.
Marina Blagojević, Ph.D. is a sociologist, gender scholar and international gender expert, who worked in more than 15 countries. She is currently employed as scientific counselor in the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research in Belgrade, and she is also a director of Altera MB-Research Centre on Gender and Ethnicity, Budapest. Currently she teaches at postgraduate gender studies in Sarajevo (feminist methodology and gender and development). She has published more than 100 publications in different languages. She is one of the leaders of women's movement in Serbia, and co-founder of Women's study Centre in Belgrade (1992). She has been engaged by different governments in the region as gender expert (by UNDP, UNIFEM, and USAID etc.) Recently she conducted surveys in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro related to gender and quality of life (Gender Barometers).
Suzana Bornarova is an assistant professor at the Institute for Social Work and Social Policy, Faculty of Philosophy, University Ss Cyril and Methodius, in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia. She is a coordinator of the National Centre for Training in Social Development located within the Institute. Holds an MA in social policy and social services for older people, and PhD in social work with families and continuing professional education. Particular research and teaching experience areas include: social policy and ageing, education policy, social work in education, social work with families, contemporary social problems, social work approaches. She has contributed over 15 scientific papers in domestic and international publications, is an editor of four collections of papers – products of domestic and international conferences, and author of two textbooks published in 2009 – Ageing and Social Policy and Demographic Challenges and Social Policy in the EU. Her recent research and consultancy work are related to: development of the Strategy for Social Protection in Macedonia for the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy; exclusion of older people for FriedrihEbert and Erste Stiftung; child protection reforms assessment and foster-care services evaluation for UNICEF; welfare-to-work programmes within a regional private sector development programme supported by SPARK foundation from Netherlands; assessment of the good-governance potentials in area of social protection in Macedonia for the Open Society Institute and others. She has cooperated with the World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP, SPARK, HelpAge International-London, AGEH-Germany, Open Society Institute, Research Centre for Civil Society and other domestic and international foundations, on implementation of various training, research and evaluation projects. In 2008/09 she became recipient of ERSTE Foundation Social Research Fellowship “Generations in Dialogue” and of the FULLBRIGHT Research Fellowship.
Zora Bútorová, PhD. is a sociologist and graduate of the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism, she has become one of the key figures in public opinion research in Slovakia. In 1998, she was one of the founders of the civic campaign of non-governmental organizations, OK '98, which contributed to free and fair parliamentary elections in Slovakia. Since 1997, she has been a senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Affairs, focusing on political culture, public opinion, and gender issues. She has edited and co-authored a number of books, including She and He in Slovakia. Gender Issues in Public Opinion (1996); Democracy and Discontent in Slovakia: A Public Opinion Profile of a Country in Transition (1998), Fragile Strength: Twenty Interviews about the Life Stories of Women (2001). Besides writing studies and articles in academic journals and print media, she also regularly contributes to annual comprehensive country reports “Slovakia: A Global Report on the State of Society” (1996 – 2009). In 2005 – 2008 she was the head of the project Plus for Women 45+ financed by the European Social Fund. Within this project, she edited the book Women, Men and Age in Labor Market Statistics and co-authored and edited the book Here and Now: Probes into the Lives of Women 45+. In 2008 she headed the team of authors and edited the book She and He in Slovakia. Gender and Age in the Period of Transition.
Sandra Breka serves as Head of the Berlin Office of the Robert Bosch Stiftung since September 2006. In addition to being the liason for the foundation in Berlin, her portfolio includes international programs focusing on Southeast Europe, transatlantic relations and India. She joined the foundation as Program Director in January 2001. Prior to this, she served as Program Director for Southeastern Europe, transatlantic relations and security issues at the Aspen Institute Berlin after a previous assignment with the American Council on Germany in New York City. She is affiliated with several international institutions. After studies in Germany, France and the United States, Sandra Breka obtained her M.A. at Columbia University in New York. She was a Yale World Fellow 2008.
Dr. Erhard Busek was born in Vienna, Austria, on March 25, 1941. He received his law degree from the University of Vienna in 1963. During his studies, he also served as Chairman of the Austrian Youth Council. He began his professional career in 1964 as legal adviser to the association of the parliamentarians of the Austrian People’s Party. He then served as Secretary General of the Austrian Federation for Trade and Commerce (1968-1975). In 1975 he was appointed Secretary General of the Austrian People’s Party and was elected Member of Parliament later that year. Dr. Busek gained additional experience in administration between 1968-1976 while with a publishing firm in the economic field. In 1976 Dr. Busek entered municipal politics. He was City Councilor and was elected Deputy-Mayor of Vienna in 1978, a position he held until 1987. He was appointed Minister for Science and Research in April 1989. From 1994 until May 1995 Dr. Busek was Minister for Education. He was elected Chairman of the Austrian People’s Party in 1991 and served as Vice-Chancellor of Austria from 1991 to 1995. In early 2000 Dr. Erhard Busek was appointed as Special Representative of the Austrian Government on EU-Enlargement. He served in that position until December 2001. Dr. Busek has delivered many lectures on domestic and foreign topics and has participated in many conferences in Austria and abroad. He is Dr. hc. of the Universities for Krakow, Bratislava, Brasov and Czernowitz, Liberec and Webster University Vienna, Visiting Professor at Duke University, NC, USA and at the University of Agriculture in Vienna. Since January 2002 Dr. Busek serves as Special Co-ordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. Furthermore he is the Coordinator of the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI); Chairman of the “Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe”; President of the European Forum Alpbach and since October 2004 he is Rector of the “Fachhochschule Salzburg”.
Born and grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria. Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Massachusetts at Boston and an International Master of Business Administration from the Univesity of South Carolina in co-operation with the Wirtschaftsuiniverstiät-Wien. Joined Erste Bank in September 1997 as a member of the strategic development team which managed the acquisitions of Ceska sporitelna and Slovenska sporitelna, among others. Moved to Erste Bank Croatia in March 2002 as a member of the Bank’s Managing Board, responsible for IT & Operations, as well as Treasury and Risk Management (for part of the period). Was in the senior management team at Erste Bank Croatia which initiated and successfully completed the take-over and integration of Rijecka banka d.d. (Croatia’s third largest bank), thus significantly strengthening the bank’s market position. Took over the CEO position at Erste Bank Serbia in April 2006 (shortly after its acquisition), heading the transformation and consolidation process there. Became CEO of good.bee Holding in January 2009. Happily married to Leila, has one son (Adrian). Likes rock & roll and moderately crazy things for a better world. Current motto: “good is groovy!”
Associate Professor in Modern European Cultural History at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, Bulgaria. She is the author of two books, editor and co-editor of eleven other volumes (in English and Bulgarian), and is author of articles and essays on history of the book and reading and women's and gender history published in Bulgarian, English, German, French, Russian, Romanian and Serbian. She is co-editor, together with Francisca de Haan and Anna Loutfi of A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms. Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries, Budapest/New York: CentralEuropeanUniversityPress, 2006. She is one of the three editors of ASPASIA.
Francis Davis is a Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford and from 2006 -09 directed a research institute at the University of Cambridge, where he continues to supervise students in international social enterprise, policy and community development. From 2007-09 he was Visiting Fellow in Social Policy at the LSE and from 2006-08 led a research team tracking civil society involvement in anti-poverty advocacy at the EU level. His research on welfare innovation and reform has been reported in major press in UK, EU and US. Francis re-entered academia having founded, led and Chaired organisations in the public, private and third sectors including an ethical migration exchange for East Europeans seeking work in the health and social care sector in the UK, a UK Social Enterprise of the Year which launched the country’s first social enterprise dental clinics , “Hospital At Home” services and community clinics. He was previously on the EU Board of the NGO Mercy Corps International and is an advisor to the International Dominican Foundation and to Stifting Porticus UK. In addition to his academic work Francis’ recent media credits include BBCTV 1, BBC Radio 4, The Guardian, The Times and The Tablet.
Slavco Dimitrov holds a diploma for Comparative and General Literature at the University of St. Cyril and Methodius. At the moment he is a postgraduate student on Gender Studies (Gender and Philosophy) at the Euro-Balkan Institute, where he is also working as a younger researcher assistant and a project coordinator in the Visual and Cultural Research Centre. In the last several years he has coordinated several projects concerning the human rights and non-discrimination of minority communities in Macedonia. At the moment he is coordinating the Coalition for Sexual and Health Rights of Marginalized Communities. His main theoretical and writing interests are related to issues of gender, culture, identity and narration, deconstruction of subjectivity and queer theory. His M. Phil. thesis is dealing with issues of narration, subjectivity, deconstruction and ethics. He has published several academic and curatorial texts in Macedonia and abroad on the subject of literary and film theory and interpretations, gender, sexuality and identity, and contemporary arts in Macedonia. He is currently working on several research project targeting issues of sexuality, gender and culture/politics, media, human rights and marginalized communities and gender and violence.
Suzana Dobre is the executive director of the Romanian Academic Society, a think-tank active in the field of public policy. She holds a MSc in European Social Policy from LSE and graduated Special Needs Education BA program at University of Bucharest. Her field of expertise is in the field of social policy, especially for people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. She provided consultancy work for the Delegation of European Commission in Romania in implementation of grant programs for civil society in social services. Also she worked as a researcher with European Foundation for Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and participated in research groups coordinated by University of Belgrade and University of Muenster. Previously Suzana Dobre worked in provision of services for disadvantaged groups by Romanian NGOs, among which Open House Association in the Day Centre program for street children and Motivation Romania for people with disabilities.
Georg Fischer is currently Head of Unit for "Social Protection, Social Services in the Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs at the European Commission in Brussels. His responsibilities include the assessment of pension adequacy and sustainability, the Open Method of Coordination on pensions and health and long-term care and the interaction between EU policies and social services. From 1996 to 2003 he was in charge of the work on Employment in Analysis within the same Directorate General including the annual "Employment in Europe report", the economic analysis of European labour markets, the assessment of the employment impact of community polices. He was involved in developing the European Employment Strategy. Prior to this he worked for the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development on employment and social policies in transition economies. He has also worked for the Austrian Government in the Ministries of Finance and Labour as well as in the Social Science Centre Berlin and for the Economic Cooperation Foundation in Tel Aviv, Israel. Georg Fischer is an economist and studied at the University of Vienna in Austria as well as the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.
Gligorov Vladimir is Associate Economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw), his research is focusing on macroeconomics, economics and politics of Southeast Europe and in particular of the states of former Yugoslavia. He has worked specifically in areas of trade integration, financial sector development, structural policies, development theory and policy and inequality in Southeast Europe. Vladimir Gligorov works on research projects for the European Commission, has consultancy assignments for International Organizations as the World Bank, the OECD, etc. and worked as an advisor to the Croatian president, the Macedonian as well as the Serbian government. He is a lecturer at the University of Vienna. Vladimir Gligorov has been a regular contributor to Oxford Analytica (Oxford and New York). He has contributed opinion pieces to Wall Street Journal and writes regular columns for several newspapers and weeklies in Southeast Europe.
Researcher, European University Institute, Florence.
Igor Guardiancich is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the European University Institute. His main research interests are social and public policy in former socialist countries and their integration into the European Union. He is currently finishing a dissertation on the comparative political economy of pension reforms in Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. He has written a number of articles on the region’s retirement systems, among which the latest –The New Pension Orthodoxy in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe: Lessons for Prospective Reformers – has been chosen by the Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche as the best paper by a young scholar. In the recent past he has worked in various international institutions, such as the Croatian Unit of DG Enlargement and the European Trade Union Institute. He is currently collaborating with the Recwowe network (stream Flexible Today, Secure Tomorrow?) and researching for the ERSTE Foundation Social Research Fellowship “Generations in Dialogue”.
Karl Kaser is professor for Southeast European History at the Karl-Franzens-University of Graz/Austria, where he received his PhD in 1980, was promoted to professor 1985 and appointed to full professor 1996. His major work and research projects have been focussing on historical-anthropological fields such as history of family, kinship, and clientelism as well as gender relations in the Balkans. Among his major monographical books are:
Familie und Verwandtschaft auf dem Balkan. Analyse einer untergehenden Kultur. Böhlau: Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 1995.
Macht und Erbe. Männerherrschaft, Besitz und Familie im östlichen Europa (1500-1900). Böhlau: Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2000.
Freundschaft und Feindschaft auf dem Balkan. Euro-balkanische Herausforderungen. Wieser: Klagenfurt 2001.
Südosteuropäische Geschichte und Geschichtswissenschaft. Böhlau: Vienna- Cologne-Weimar 2002.
Patriarchy after Patriarchy. Gender Relations in the Balkans and in Turkey, 1500-2000. Lit: Vienna-Berlin 2008.
Director, Personal Finance Research Centre, University of Bristol
Elaine Kempson is Director of the Personal Finance Research Centre (PFRC) and Professor of Personal Finance and Social Policy Research at the University of Bristol in the UK. She is an internationally known and respected authority on consumer financial issues, and has over 20 years experience in conducting research into various aspects of personal financial services, including financial inclusion, over-indebtedness and the need for financial education. She has recently completed a study for the European Commission that investigated levels and causes of financial exclusion in Europe as well as policy responses to promote inclusion. Elaine is a member of the UK Government’s Financial Inclusion Taskforce, Social Security Advisory Committee and Advisory Group on Over-indebtedness. She is also a member of the European Commission Expert Group on Financial Education. Elaine is a non-executive director of the UK Financial Ombudsman Service. In 2007 Elaine was awarded a CBE for services to the Financial Services Industry.
Prof. Droctor Habil. Milena Kirova teaches Bulgarian Literature, Cultural Anthropology and Gender Studies at the University of Sofia, where she is also chair of the Dept. of Bulgarian Literature. Author of nine books and more than 500 articles and studies in different collective publications, in scientific and cultural periodicals. Editor of many books in Bulgarian literature and Gender Studies. Among the books written by her are: Biblical Femininity. Mechanisms of construction, Strategies of Representation (2005), The Problematic Realism (2002), The Dream of the Meduze. Towards Psychoanalysis of Bulgarian Literature (1995). Currently, she is president of the Bulgarian Association of University Women.
Reiner Klingholz grew up in the German town of Ludwigshafen. He studied chemistry and did his PhD in molecular biology. At the University of Hamburg he worked as a researcher on the structure of genetic molecules before he became a science and environment editor for DIE ZEIT, Germany's most influential weekly newspaper. From 1990 on he worked as a staff writer at GEO magazine, a renowned monthly for nature, science and culture and as editor of the science magazine GEO-WISSEN. Klingholz has written a number of books about the scientific and social impacts of genetic engineering, astronomy, climate change and the problems of population growth. He has won several journalism awards for
his books and articles. Since 2003 Reiner Klingholz acts as director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development a think tank for demographic issues. The institute has published numerous broadly discussed studies on demographic changes in Germany, Europe and the world.
János Kornai is Allie S. Freed Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard University, Permanent Fellow Emeritus of Collegium Budapest – Institute for Advanced Study, and Distinguished Research Professor at the Central European University in Budapest. He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the European Academy, and Foreign Member of the American, British, Bulgarian, Finnish, Russian and Swedish Academies. He has served as President of the Econometric Society, of the European Economic Association, and of the International Economic Association. He has received the highest Hungarian prizes for scholarship, as well as the Seidman Award (USA), and the Humboldt Prize (Germany). He has also become Officer of the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur (France). He has received honorary doctorates from 14 universities. János Kornai’s research has focused on the critical analysis of the socialist system and post-socialist transition. After the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe his attention has partly turned to economic policy, especially to macroeconomic problems and the reform of the welfare state. His best known works are Overcentralization in Economic Administration (1957), Anti-Equilibrium (1971), Economics of Shortage (1980), The Road to a Free Economy (1990), The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism (1992), Highway and Byways (1995), Struggle and Hope (1997), Welfare, Choice, and Solidarity in Transition (co-author Karen Eggleston, 2001), By Force of Thought: Irregular Memoirs of an Intellectual Journey (2006), From Socialism to Capitalism (2008). His works have been translated into more than twenty languages.
Prodi. Michael Landesmann completed his doctorate in economics at Oxford University (Balliol College) and was Fellow and Lecturer in Economics, Jesus College, Cambridge and Senior Research Officer at the Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge. He is Founding Managing Editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, North Holland and a member of the editorial boards of a range of academic journals. He was Schumpeter Research Professor at Harvard University (USA) and held Visiting Professorships at the Graduate School of International Economics and Finance, Brandeis Univ. (USA), University of Basel (Switzerland), Central European University and CERGE-EI (Prague; Czech Republic), Bombay Univ. (India), Universities of Bologna, Modena and Padova (Italy), Osaka Univ. and Osaka City Univ. (Japan). Book publications: Industrial Restructuring and Trade Reorientation in Eastern Europe; (with I. Szekely); Cambridge University Press, 1994. Transforming Economies and European Integration; (with R. Dobrinsky); Edward Elgar, 1995. Production and Economic Dynamics; (with R. Scazzieri); Cambridge University Press, 1996. Unemployment in Europe; (with K. Pichelmann); Macmillan Publ., 1999. The Economics of Structural Change; (with H. Hagemann and R. Scazzieri), Edward Elgar, 3 volumes, 2003. Shaping the New Europe – The Challenge of EU Eastern Enlargement (with D. Rosati); Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004. Economic Restructuring and Labour Markets in the Accession Countries (with T. Ward); European Commission; Employment and Social Affairs, 2004, Brussels. The European Economy in an American Mirror (with B. Eichengreen and D. Stiefel); Routledge Publishers; 2008. Mathematical Economics and the Dynamics of Capitalism (with P. Flaschel); Routledge Publishers, 2008.
Sonja Licht is a graduate in sociology from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade, where she also received her MA in Socio-Cultural Anthropology. She has long worked as a research fellow in the Institute for International Politics and Economy and the Institute for European Studies. She is the author of numerous articles in local and international magazines, journals and books. She participated in the Yugoslav dissident movement from the end of the sixties, and from the mid-eighties she founded numerous local and international non-governmental organisations, including a number of women’s organisations. Between 1991 and 1995 Sonja was the co-chair (with Mary Kaldor) of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, a broad coalition of various civic organisations and movements from all European and North American countries. From 1991 to 2003 she was first the Executive director, then the President of the Fund for an Open Society (Soros Foundation) in Yugoslavia (later Serbia), a major donor of a vigorous civil society. During that period she was a board member of many reputable international institutions. Sonja Licht is currently a member of the Board of the European Cultural Foundation, member of the Advisory Board of the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces and Geneva Centre for Security Policies. She is the Chair of the Executive Board and a member of the Advisory Board of the International Centre for Democratic Transition, Budapest. She is the Chair of “Politika” Company’s Board, a member of Jefferson Institute for World Poltics, Washington D.C. and Belgrade, board. She is a laureate of many awards, among which: the Award for Peace of the Swedish Social Forum, Award for Peace of the European Chancellors’ Club, Hiroshima Award of Edit and Ira Morris Foundation from Sweden, International Human Rights Award of the International League for Human Rights, Human Rights Award of the Albert Schweitzer Institute for Humanities, Award for Tolerance of Serbia and Montenegro Ministry of Human and Minority Rights, Pro Merit Medal of the Council of Europe, the MDG3 Torch, the Star of Italian Solidarity and the French Legion of Honour.
Jaroslava Marhankova is a faculty member of the Department of Sociology at the University of West Bohemia and also a PhD student in Sociology at Masaryk University. Her research focuses on gender aspect of ageing. She is using qualitative methods to study ways gender identity influences and is affected by the experience of ageing. She is particularly interested in the sociology of the body that brought her to the analysis of the discourse of active ageing and subjective attitudes towards it. Recently she has been awarded the ERSTE Foundation Social Research Fellowships "Generations in Dialogue". Thanks to this support she is currently working on her project concerning the active ageing in Czech Republic. She is conducting ethnographic study of centers that offer leisure time activities for elderly. She focuses especially on gender aspect of active ageing and issues of embodiment. She also participates in research project „Life-course de-standardization in the contemporary Czech Republic”. This project employs qualitative and quantitative methodology to investigate the de-standardization of the life course in the Czech Republic. She is conducting biographical interviews to gain a better understanding of the spontaneous structuring of people’s life stories.
Jože Mencinger was born in Jesenice, Slovenia, Yugoslavia, on March 5, 1941. He graduated law with the University of Ljubljana, in 1964 and made his PhD in economics with the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, in 1975. Jože Mencinger workesd as assistant professor (1977), associate professor (1983), professor of economics (1987) with the Law School, University of Ljubljana He is author of a number of articles and publications on the Yugoslav and Slovene economic system and policy, labour market, exchange rate, transition, privatization etc. published home and abroad. He was deputy prime minister and minister for economic affairs: Republic of Slovenia (1990 – 1991), member of the Board, Bank of Slovenia (1991 – 1997), director of Economic Institute of the Law School (1993 – 2001).
Lynette Šikić-Mićanović is a research associate at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar in Zagreb, Croatia. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology and her research has focused on rural/farm women as well as Roma women and children in Croatia. Her current work is with the homeless in Croatia that incorporates a gendered anthropological perspective and qualitative methodologies.
Mihaela Miroiu is Professor of Political Sciences in the Political Science Faculty at the National School for Political Studies and Public Administration (NSPSA), Bucharest, Romania. In addition to initiating the first Ph.D. program in Political Science in Romania in 2000, she developed the country’s first academic classes in Feminist Theories (1994) and the first MA program in Gender Studies (1998). Her research area encompasses the fields of political theories (contemporary political theory, feminist political theories, and political ethics), post-communist transition, and gender and politics. Her major works centers on feminist ethics from the perspective of “the theory of convenience” as well as in applied political theory, mainly on the analysis of illiberal democracy in Eastern Europe (show-room democracy) and of what she calls: “room-service feminism” and “costless state feminism”. She is the author of 12 books. Among them are: Thoughts of the Shadow: Feminist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophy (1995), Convenio. On Nature, Women and Morals (1996); Backward-Looking Society, (1999); Guidelines for Promoting Equity in Higher Education, (2003), Road to Autonomy: Feminist Political Theories (2004); Priceless Women (2006) and Beyond Angels and Devils: Ethics in the Romanian Politics (2007). She edited and co-edited other 9 books, the most of them on feminism, including a Feminist Lexicon (2002). Since 2000, Mihaela Miroiu is the coordinator of Gender Studies series at Polirom Publishing House. She has received the first National Price for her public activity against discrimination and equal opportunities (2005). She is playing a very active public role as feminist and political analyst in the Romanian civil society and mass-media.
David Morris is Professor of Mental Health, Inclusion and Community at the International School for Communities, Rights and Inclusion (ISCRI) University of Central Lancashire and Director of the Inclusion Institute, a new centre for learning, evidence and innovation on inclusion and community within ISCRI. He also holds a Visiting Academic Associate post at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London.
David worked in support of the Social Exclusion Unit at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in producing, in 2004, the national report ‘Mental Health and Social Exclusion’ and subsequently founded the National Social Inclusion Programme (NSIP) to implement the report’s 27 sets of recommendations across government and with key national organisations. He also contributed to the work of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit on inclusion and its Social Exclusion Action Plan (2006) and has had lead responsibility for key aspects of that report, supporting the development by the Cabinet Office of the new cross-government Public Service Agreement on Social Inclusion.
Rainer Münz is Head of Research & Development at Erste Group Bank AG and Senior Fellow at the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI). He is an expert on population change, international migration and demographic aging, their economic impact and their implications for social security. He studied at Vienna University, where he earned his PhD in 1978. Until 1992 he was director of the Institute of Demography at the Austrian Academy of Science. Between 1992 and 2003 he was head of the Department of Demography at Humboldt University, Berlin. He was visiting professor at the Universities of Bamberg (1986), University of California at Berkeley (1986, 1989, 1997-98), Frankfurt (1988), Klagenfurt (1996, 1998), Vienna (2001-02) and Zurich (1992). He also was Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Mathematics of Finance, Technical University, Vienna (2001-2002). Rainer Münz has worked as consultant for the European Commission, the OECD and the World Bank. He served as an advisor to the Greek (2003), Dutch (2004) and Slovene (2008) EU presidencies. In 2000-01 he was member of the German commission on immigration reform (Süssmuth commission). Since 2008 he is Member of the high level “Reflection Group Horizon 2020-2030” of the European Union (so-called EU “Group of the Wise”). Rainer Münz is member of several boards and advisory boards; among them: International Organization for Migration (IOM, Geneva), World Demographic Association (WDA, St. Gallen), Center for Migration, Integration and Citizenship at Oxford University (COMPAS, Oxford, UK), International Metropolis Project (Ottawa – Amsterdam), Daimler-Benz Foundation (Ladenburg, Germany), SOT Accountants (Vienna-Graz-Munich), VBV Pension Insurance (Vienna), STUWO AG (Vienna), Institute for the Danube region and Central Europe (Vienna).
Claus Offe, born 1940, was Professor of Political Science at Humboldt University, Berlin, where he has held a chair of Political Sociology and Social Policy. His previous positions include professorships at the Universities of Bielefeld and Bremen, where he has served as director of the Center of Social Policy Research. He has held research fellowships and visiting professorships in the US, Canada, Australia, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands. Since 2006 he is Professor of Political Science at Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, a private professional school of public policy. His fields of research are democratic theory, transition studies, EU integration, and welfare state and labor market studies. He has published numerous articles and book chapters in these fields, a selection of which is reprinted as Herausforderungen der Demokratie. Zur Integrations- und Leistungsfähigkeit politischer Institutionen (2003). Recent book publications in English include Varieties of Transition (1996), Modernity and the State: East and West (1996), Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies (1998, with J. Elster and U. K. Preuss) and Reflections on America. Tocqueville, Weber, und Adorno in the United States (2005).
Enriketa Pandelejmoni (born in 1976 in Tirana) is a lecturer at Faculty of History and Philology, University of Tirana, Albania. Between 2000–2007, she was researcher at the Centre for Southeast European History, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz, Austria. Her research focuses on the history of Albania, historical anthropology, historical demography, urban anthropology and urban history. From October 2004, she is a PhD Study at Karl-Franzens Universität Graz, History (Southeast European History/ Contemporary History). Her ongoing thesis is entitled “Shkodra: Household and Family life. Inter-wars period 1918-1939”.She is a member of the Centre for Southeast European History, Karl-Franzens Universität Graz and of the Centre for the Study of Balkan Societies and Cultures and also of the International Association for Southeast European Anthropology. She is also in the editorial Board of the Journal Hylli Dritës. Botim i Urdhrit Françeskan. Shkodër. Between 2003- 2007 she was involved in the Project “Tirana and Shkodra: Demographic and historical-anthropological trends in two Albanian cities (1918- 1938)” – at the Institute of History, Centre for Southeast European History, University of Graz, Austria (financed by FWF- Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Austria).
Sandra Pralong is the founder of SynergEtica, a foundation
that seeks to promote ethics among Romanian youth, and of Synergy
Communications, a company specialized in strategic advice for clients like Google, Renault Automotive, Erste Bank, Oltchim, Bechtel,Berlitz, Regus, the Delegation of the EC in Moldova, the World Bank, etc.
An international media executive (Newsweek, CNN) and civil society activist, Ms Pralong has returned to her native Romania in 1990 to set up and manage the Soros Foundation, creating over 200 programs in civil society development, democracy building, human rights, education, mediam, arts and culture, etc.
Between 1998 and 2000, Ms Pralong has been an advisor to the President of Romania, responsible for Romanians Abroad. After 2002, and she became the regional communications advisor of the United Nations Development Programme in the 27 countries of East and Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union. In 2008 she was named Ambassador of Goodwill for the European Year of Inter-Cultural Dialogue and she created the Embassy of the Arts to promote Romania's contributions to Europe.
Sandra Pralong has written extensively on civil society and ethics. She holds a Doctorate in Political Science from Sciences Po in Paris, a Master of Arts in International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, and a Master of Philosophy degree from Columbia University in New York.
Franz Karl Prüller has been with DIE ERSTE Foundation as Programme Director for the Social Development Programme of the Foundation since the beginning of September 2005. He is serving on the Supervisory Boards of Die Zweite Sparkasse, the good.bee Holding and good.bee Credit IFN in Romania. He represents ERSTE Foundation in the Steering Committees of the European Fund for the Balkans and the Grant-makers East Forum. Franz Karl comes from 17 years of service with Caritas Austria (1988-2005), one of the main charitable organisations and social service providers in Austria. He has served there for 9 years (1996 – 2005) as secretary general in charge of the international programmes and project department of Caritas Austria. During this time he represented Caritas Austria on the Executive Boards of Caritas Internationalis and Europa (the umbrella organisations of Caritas on the international and European level) and served as chairman of the board of the charitable foundation “Neighbour in Need” for three years. Before 1996 he was in charge of the Central and Eastern European programme and the disaster relief programme of Caritas. During his time with the CEE programme from 1989 to 1993 he helped to re-establish Caritas organisations from the Czech Republic to Romania and Bulgaria. In his capacity as emergency aid coordinator of Caritas Austria he was active, among others, in countries such as Armenia, Romania, Kurdistan/Iran, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, Ruanda, and helped to organise emergency responses through the world-wide Caritas network in a number of other Asian, African and Latin-American countries. From 1986-1988 he worked for the International Catholic Rural Association in Rome between 1984 and 1986 as a volunteer with the United Nations in Vienna. He has studied forestry at the University for Agriculture and Forestry in Vienna and holds a BA in International Studies from Webster University, St. Louis/USA as well as a Master of Science in Development Management from the Open University in England.
Hans Reitz was born in Bad Abbach, spent his childhood in Bavaria, at the age of 20 he started his years of travelling and studying classical instruments in India, cultural manager of tent theater Chapiteau, Mondo Kaya, cirque noveau, organization of further several theater projects.In 1992 he began with Natural Shakti – forest farming with coffee and spices – together with his friend Reinhold Treitinger in Kumily/ Kerala, India.
Hans Reitz founded the event company “circ” in 1994. He is co-founder of the coffeehouse-chain “Perf ect Day” since 2004, partner of the company “Bridge to India” since 2008, founder and executive director of the Grameen Creative Lab, a joint-venture between the Yunus Center in Bangladesh and circ responsibility (2009) etc. He is also publisher of the “corporate lexikon” in 2008 and “The Power of Dignity” in 2008 (Essay by Peter Spiegel, Photography by Roger Richter)
Ilse Maria Simma was born in Bregenz, Austria on the 3rd of April in 1980. She completed her studies at the Law School of the University of Vienna in 2005 and started her work as a consultant in social policies in the political department of the Austrian People´s Party. In fall 2006 she organised a nationwide working group under the direction of Waltraud Klasnic with the topic „The future of Long-term Care and Nursing in Austria“. In 2006 Ilse Simma became a member of the cabinet of the minister for economics and labour, Dr. Martin Bartenstein and was therefore involved in the coalition negotiations between the Social Democrat´s and the Austrian People´s Party for the Austrian Government. The main negotiation topics she worked on were social policies, poverty issues and the reform of the Austrian pension system. From 2006 until the end of 2008 Ilse Simma was the Head of the Political Department of the Austrian People´s Party and again a consultant of the negotiation team in the coalition negotiations for the Austrian Government. Since 2009 Ilse Simma directs the Social Policy Department of Caritas Austria. Her competencies comprise long-term care, poverty issues and working on policies for education and integration in Austria.
Caroline Hornstein Tomić, born 1968 in Heidelberg/Germany, holds an MA in cultural anthropology and a doctoral degree in sociology from Goethe University / Frankfurt. Her Masters thesis on migration and citizenship in Germany was published in 1995 (Das Dilemma der Einbürgerung / the dilemma of naturalization). In 2001 she gained her doctoral degree (Konrad Adenauer Foundation fellow) with a theoretical work on anthropological discourses and actors, published in 2003 (Grenzgänger – Problematik interkultureller Verständigung / cultural border crossers – problems of intercultural understanding). In 1996/97 she spent one research year at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge/USA. Engagements in university teaching and publishing, as well as in cultural politics and the NGO-sector accompanied her studies. In 2000 she joined the foreign service of Konrad Adenauer Foundation and headed the Foundation's country office in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2001 until 2005. After the birth of her two children in 2005 and 2007, Caroline Hornstein Tomić has, since 2006 with residence in Zagreb/Croatia, again resumed academic as well as consultancy work. She is currently working at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences in Zagreb (research fields: political anthropology and sociology of transformation; ethnic minorities; state building processes; gender and power relations in the wider SOE region). Caroline Hornstein Tomić is member of the Board of Trustees of ERSTE Foundation.
Ivan Vejvoda is executive director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund dedicated to strengthening democratic institutions in Southeastern Europe. Mr. Vejvoda came to GMF in 2003 from distinguished service in the Serbian government as senior advisor on foreign policy and European integration to Prime Ministers Zoran Djindjic and Zoran Zivkovic. Prior to that, he served as executive director of the Belgrade-based Fund for an Open Society from 1998 to 2002. During the mid-1990s, Mr. Vejvoda held various academic posts in the United States and the United Kingdom, including one-year appointments as associate professor of political science at Smith College in Massachusetts and Macalester College in Minnesota, and a three-year research fellowship at the University of Sussex in England. Mr. Vejvoda was a key figure in the democratic opposition movement in Serbia through the 1990s, and is widely published on the subjects of political theory democratic transition, totalitarianism, and post-war reconstruction in the Balkans. He has co-edited Yugoslavia and After (Longman, London, 1996) and Democratization in East and Central Europe (Cassel, London, 1999). He is a member of the Serbian Pen Club and is a board member of American social science journals Constellations and Philosophy and Social Criticism. Vejvoda holds a Diploma from Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris and completed postgraduate studies in philosophy at Belgrade University.
He has been awarded the French National Order of Merit; and the Order of the Italian Star of Solidarity.
Andrij Waskowycz – President of Caritas Ukraine and Member of the Caritas Europa Executive Board; Born March 21th 1957 in Munich, Germany; Studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich; From 1987 to August 1992 – Chief editor of weekly Ukrainian language newspaper in Munich From September 1992 to August 1993 organized the editorial office and publishing of the Ukrainian weekly newspaper in Ukraine From September 1993 to January 1995 – Co-founder and chief editor of the German language monthly “Ukraine Report”, journal on Ukrainian politics, economy, law and culture in Kyiv From January 1995 to September 1998 – Freelance journalist and consultant in Kyiv From September 1998 to February 2001 Caritas Ukraine Kyiv Office Bureau Chief responsible for development and maintenance of relations with Government, NGO’s and international donor organizations From February to June 2001 – Press officer of the Catholic Churches of Ukraine for the Papal Visit to Ukraine in June of 2001 Since September 2001 – President of Caritas Ukraine
Tatiana Zhurzhenko is an Associate Professor at V.Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine). Since 2007 she is Elise Richter Research Fellow at the Institute of Political Sceince, University of Vienna, working on the research project "Politics of Memory and National Identity in Post-Soviet Borderlands: Ukraine/Russia and Ukraine/Poland". She graduated from Kharkiv State University in 1989 with a diploma in Political Economy. In 1993 she obtained the Candidate of Sciences degree (equivalent to Ph.D.) from the same university. In 1994-1999 she was a member and a co-director of the Kharkiv Center for Gender Studies. In 1999-2001 she conducted the research project “Who Pays for the Market? Social Reproduction and Gender Politics in Contemporary Ukraine” sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation. In 2001 she participated in the Kennan Institute Project “The Role of Women in Transitional Societies” (Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC). In the same year she was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna working on contemporary Ukrainian feminism. Tatiana Zhurzhenko has been teaching gender studies at Kharkiv National University (Ukraine) and Toronto University (Canada); in Austria at the Institute for East European History of Vienna University and at the Rosa Mayreder College. Zhurzhenko's interest in gender politics is embedded in her research on transformation processes in post-Soviet societies, especially in Ukraine. Along with her research on nation-building and memory politics, new borders and regional identities in the post-Soviet space, she has worked on feminism and nationalism, women's movements and nation building, market transformations and new gender roles, demography, family politics and gender. Most recent publication: Gendered Markets in Ukraine. The Political Economy of Nation Building,Vilnius: EHU Press, 2008, 256 p. (in Russian).
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