Benjamin Novak is currently a doctoral candidate at the John Hopkins University.
He was a reporter based in Budapest, Hungary at New York Times until 2022. He has reported from Hungary since 2013, and began reporting for The New York Times in 2018. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and now he is a doctoral student at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Edit Inotai is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy, Journalist at ARD and Balkan Insight.
She is a journalist based in Budapest with a background in foreign and European affairs. Currently, she mainly works for German public television ARD and for the English-language new website Balkan Insight. Previously, she used to work as a Foreign Editor of Népszabadság (2010-2014) and as a correspondent in Berlin (2003-2007). She holds a PhD in International Relations, and an MA in English and Spanish literature.
Benedek Jávor is the Head of Representation at the Representation of Budapest in Brussels.
He is a Hungarian environmentalist and a founding member of Dialogue for Hungary party (Párbeszéd Magyarországért). He is also a member of the European Parliament for Together – Dialogue for Hungary Alliance (Együtt – Párbeszéd Magyarországért Választási Szövetség). He is first vice-chair of the Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and is a substitute member of the Committee of Industry, Research and Energy. In the 2010 general elections, he won a seat in the Hungarian National Assembly and was Chair of the Sustainable Development Committee for most of his mandate. Furthermore, Benedek is a founding member of the environmental NGO Védegylet (Protect the Future!) and holds a PhD. in biology. He is the author of several articles and publications on environmental threats, ‘going green’, and the future of the Earth.
Bas Eickhout is a Member of the European Parliament of the Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) group.
In his third term, Eickhout was elected in 2009, 2014 and 2019 and is delegation leader of the Dutch Greens in Parliament. He is a member and the coordinator for his group in the committee on the environment, public Health and food Safety (ENVI) and a substitute member of the committee on economic and monetary affairs (ECON) and the committee on budgetary control (CONT). In addition, he is a member of the delegation for relations with the People’s Republic of China (D-CN) and a substitute member of the delegation for relations with the United States (D-US). He worked on several projects that addressed international environmental issues, such as climate change, agriculture, land use and biofuels. He co-authored the IPCC report on climate change which received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Prior to his career, he studied Chemistry and Environmental Sciences at the Radboud University in Nijmegen (RU).
Balázs Vedres is a Senior Research Fellow at CEU Democracy Institute.
Vedres’ research furthers the agenda of developing data science and network science with social theoretical insight. His research results were published in the top journals of data science, network science, and sociology, with two recent articles in the American Journal of Sociology developing the pragmatist notion of structural folds: creative tensions in intersecting yet cognitively diverse cohesive communities. Vedres’ recent research follows entrepreneurs, video game developers, jazz musicians, programmers, and graphic designers as they weave collaborative networks through their projects and recording sessions, analyzing questions of the sources of creativity, gender inequality, and the historical sustainability of innovation systems. In another line of work, Vedres has analyzed historical network evolution in the areas of transnational civic activism, politicized business groups, and the evolution of global economic flows. In his ongoing reserch Balazs Vedres is analyzing the impact of launching a bot on Wikipedia on the strength and survival of human collaborations for bot owners.
Balázs Felsmann is Associate Professor at Corvinus University and Senior Researcher at Regional Energy Policy Research Centre (REKK).
Balázs Felsmann joined the Regional Centre for Energy Policy Research as a senior research associate in January 2016. As a researcher, consultant and former state officer he has wide range of experiences on the institutional and competitive framework of the utility industries. As a former state secretary he participated in the preparation of several policy documents including the new Energy Policy of Hungary (2007-2020), the Strategy for Increasing the Share of Renewable Energy Sources (2008-2020), the Unified Transport Development Strategy (2008-2020) and various major pieces of the legislation regarding electricity, natural gas, renewable energies and transportation.
As a consultant Mr Felsmann has worked on various projects on the field of energy sector for governmental organisations, NGOs, market leading industrial companies and international financial institutes. He actively participates in the work of various scientific and business organisations of the utility area and on national and international conferences regarding energy policy and utility management topics.
Dr. Anton Shekhovtsov is Director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity (Austria), Visiting Professor at the Department of International Relations of the Central European University (Austria), and Associated Researcher at the Research Center for the History of Transformations at the University of Vienna (Austria). He holds a PhD from University College London (UK). He is the author of the Russian language book New Radical Right-Wing Parties in European Democracies (2011) and the book Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir (2017). His new book, Russian Political Warfare, is planned to appear later in October 2023. Shekhovtsov also published numerous op-eds in international media, and several academic articles in Journal of Democracy, Russian Politics and Law, Europe-Asia Studies, Nationalities Papers, and Patterns of Prejudice, among others.
Anna Unger is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political and International Studies at Eötvös Lóránd University. She received her degrees (political scientist – 2003, PhD in Political Science – 2018) from the Faculty of Law, ELTE. Her main research interests are democracy as a theory and a method, with a special focus on direct democracy, the politics of elections, and American politics. Her ongoing research project (grant no. 131883, NKFIH Hungary) focuses on the development and challenges of direct democracy in Hungary between 1989-2018. Beyond this project, she also interested in electoral integrity and electoral competitiveness, and the safeuards of democracy in federal political systems. Since the mid-2000s, she wrote dozens of articles about politics into different Hungarian weekly and daily newspapers. As an expert of democracy and elections, she is a regular guest of public events about democracy organized by NGOs and think tanks, and of the media.
Anja Wehler-Schöck is an International Editor at Tagesspiegel.
Anja Wehler-Schöck is international editor at the German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Prior to that, she served as editor-in-chief of IPG Journal, a debate forum for international and European policy. Previously, Ms Wehler-Schöck worked as political counsellor at the German Embassy in Washington, DC. Ms Wehler-Schöck joined the German Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in 2005 and then headed the Amman Office as country director for Jordan and Iraq. Before relocating to Jordan in 2012, she served as Desk Officer for the United States, Canada and Japan. Prior to joining FES, her assignments led her to Tunisia, Jordan, and the United States. She is the author of a book on women’s rights in Jordan and is a regular contributor to various media with her analyses on Jordan and Iraq. Anja Wehler-Schöck holds a Dual Master’s Degree in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris and the Free University of Berlin.
András Földes is a journalist and also a video journalist at Hvg.hu. He was working at Index for 20 years, then he was a journalist at Telex between 2020 and 2022.
He is an award-winning journalist, video journalist, photographer from Budapest, Hungary, covering conflict zones, Middle East, migration, and mountaineering/rock climbing occasionally. He won the Pulitzer Memorial Prize, Hungarian Press Quality Award and Hungarian Press Photo Contest, and Hégető-Honorka Grand Prix for Video journalism.