Katerina (Katarina) Kolozova, PhD. is the director of the Institute in Social Sciences and Humanities-Skopje and a professor of philosophy, epistemology and gender studies at ISSHS and also at the University American College, Skopje and a visiting professor at Arizona State University-Center for Philosophical Technologies. She is also visiting professor at several universities in Southeastern Europe, most notably at the Department of Political Studies of FMK-Belgrade. In 2009, Kolozova was a visiting scholar at the Department of Rhetoric (Program of Critical Theory) at the University of California-Berkeley, under peer supervision of prof. Judith Butler. Katerina Kolozova was a Columbia University NY-SIPA Visiting Scholar at its Paris Global Centre in 2019 working on issues of authoritarianism and feminism in Europe. Author of the books: Cut of the Real: Subjectivity in Poststucturalist Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 2014), Toward a Radical Metaphysics of Socialism: Marx and Laruelle (Brooklyn New York: Punctum Books, 2015), After the ‘Speculative Turn’: Realism, Philosophy, and Feminism (co-author, Brooklyn New York: Punctum Books 2016) and Capitalism’s Holocaust of Animals: Non-Philosophical Critique of the Automata of Capital and Patriarchy (London UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). Her articles and chapter published in the last few years are: Chapter 9 “Poststructuralism” in the Oxford Handbook for Feminist Philosophy (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2021) and Kolozova, Katerina (2023). “The Ebb of the Old Liberal Order and the Horizon of New Possibilities for Freedom,” In Adrian Parr & Santiago Zabala (eds.), Outspoken: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century (Toronto CA: McGill-Queen’s University Press), pp. 39-46. She is also the author of numerous interdisciplinary policy studies dedicated to the issues of “illiberal democracy,” partocratic mechanisms of state-capture in “hybrid regimes,” policy critique of repressive technocracy in the legislation of the authoritarian neoliberal post-socialist states in Europe. Reforms in the educational and scientific sector and their consistent alignment with the principles and documents of the Bologna process, and especially the implementation of the EU strategic goal of the “twin transition” (digital and green) in the process, is one of the main topics of Kolozova’s current policy analyses. In the period 2021-2022, as a volunteer, she volunteered in the team of experts who advised the Ministry of Education on the subject of reforms in the science sector. Since August 2023, she has been engaged by the Secretariat for European Affairs as an expert on Chapter 26, Cluster 3 of the EU related reforms and consistent application of the Bologna process.

Click the read more button for more info on Prof. Kolozova’s scientific applied research and advocacy engagement with the topics of “illiberal democracies”, democratic backsliding and “state capture” in soft authoritarianism:

Email: [email protected]
Phone/Fax: +389 2 3113 059

Viktorija Borovska is Program director and Associate professor – Researcher at Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities- Skopje. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology. She has worked on many projects in the area of social sciences and humanities. Selection of the recent research projects and positions: Researcher “Independent Context Watch”; Coordinator and researcher from the Macedonian partner of the regional project: “Religion in Western Balkan societies” Project Researcher: Analysis of Gender Issues in Program Concepts and Content of the Mass Media and Analysis of the Presentation and Presentation of Women and Men in Program Concepts and Content; Researcher and coordinator of the public opinion research of the project: Research on Gender Equality in the Municipality of Polog Region as part of Equality and Gender Mainstreaming Across Borders; Researcher: “Official Language Usage in Municipalities in the Republic of Macedonia”; Researcher: “Skopje 2014 Project and its Effects on the Perception of Macedonian Identity Among the Citizens of Skopje”; Project researcher: “Ethnic and Gender Inclusion in the LGBTI Movement in Macedonia”; Trainer of trainings organized by the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities – Skopje: “Gender equality as a social value and policy making for its introduction in the practice of institutions and society”, Researcher of the project Gender, Migration, Intercultural Relations- Ge.M.I.C; founded under FP 7- Cooperation -.Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities.

She also has the methodological experience in designing quantitative/qualitative methodology of research projects, as well as practical experience in collecting qualitative and quantitative data, processing of data and its analysis.

International journals and publications:

(2019) “Role of Religion in the Western Balkans’ Societies – Survey Report North Macedonia,” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 39 : Iss. 5 , Article 2. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/

(2019) “Role of Religion in the Western Balkans’ Societies – Cross-Country comparison and Concluding Remarks,” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 39 : Iss. 5 , Article 2. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/

(2018) “Impact of Motherhood on Women’s Identity”, author, ANNUAL of ISPJR, Skopje, http://isppi.ukim.edu.mk/images/963860Annual-2018-prv-broj.pdf

(2015) “Demystification of Maternal Ideologies – Maternal Instinct”, a chapter in Tamara Petrovic-Trifunovic, Sanja Milutinovic Bojanic and Gazela Pudar Drasko (eds.) Mind the Gap (s) Family, Socialization and Gender, University of Belgrade, http://instifdt.bg.ac.rs/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Mind-the-Gap.pdf

(2007) „The Challenges of the Interdisciplinary Character of Teaching Gender Studies “, co-autor, Journal: Identities, Skopje
Prepared policy studies with recommendations:

(2017) “Study on the Presentation and Presentation of Gender in the Media in Macedonia”, co-author, Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services, Skopje https://avmu.mk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ Истражување-родови-2017.pdf

(2016) “Effective Assembly, Strong Democracy: A Vision for Improving the System of Checks and Balances in the Republic of Macedonia”, co-author, Skopje https://www.epi.org.mk/docs/[D4V]%20Checks%20and%20balances%20in%20the%20Republic%20of%20Macedonia%20-%20how%20to%20make%20them%20work.pdf

(2015) “The State of Equality in Decision Making and Promotion of Gender Equality in the Polog Region”, co-author, Akcija Zdruzenska, Skopje http://zdruzenska.org.mk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Izvestaj-Sostojba -so-ednakvosta-vo-odlucuvanjeto-Poloski-region-FINAL.pdf

(2014) „Official Language Usage in Municipalities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, co-author, ISSHS, Skopje

(2013) “Who Owns Alexander the Great? A Question of EU Enlargement”, Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities-Skopje, 2013, Co-author, ISSHS, Skopje https://www.isshs.edu.mk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Who-owns-Alexander-the-Great-A-Question-Upon-Which-EU-Enlargement-Relies.pdf

Email: [email protected]
Phone/Fax: +389 2 3113 059

Ana Blazheva, Ph.D., Researcher/ Assistant Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities – Skopje She holds a BA in psychology, an MA in sociology and gender studies and PhD in cultural studies. She teaches qualitative research methodology and elective courses: gender policy and emotions and politics. Her research experience is mostly in qualitative research in the field of policy studies, gender, marginalized communities, media, social inclusion, education, youth etc. She has published research reports, policy research analysis, academic papers as well as manuals. Her interest is in interdisciplinary approach of emotions and politics and socio-political aspects of mental health.
She is also certified Gestalt psychotherapist working in private practice as part of Psihoterapika – Association for Psychology and Psychotherapy and trainer for Gestalt Psychotherapy in Gestalt institute – Sinergija, Skopje.

Email: [email protected]
Phone/Fax: +389 2 3113 059

Kalina Lechevska is a Senior Researcher and Full professor at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities-Skopje. She has a PhD in Sociology, from the Department for Sociology at the Institute for Sociological, Political and Legal Research, at the University “St.Cyril and Methodius.”

Lechevska has many years of experience in designing methodology and research techniques in qualitative and quantitative analysis. She is also the author / co-author of numerous scientific and applied publications by ISSHS. On behalf of the Institute, she has participated in international conferences / seminars in the European countries and short-term academic visits in Vienna and Berlin.

Email: [email protected]
Phone/Fax: +389 2 3113 059

Prof. Dr. Dona Kolar-Panov was educated in Croatia, Canada, and Australia. She received her PhD from Murdoch University, Western Australia, where she taught (at the School of Humanities) from 1989 to 1995. She moved to Skopje, Macedonia in 1995 and was the Head of the Postgraduate Department at the Institute for Sociological, Juridical and Political Research at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje (from 1995 to 2006), where, in 1997, she founded the first Postgraduate Studies in Communication and Media in Macedonia, at Master’s and Doctoral level. She is considered to be the founder of Communication and Media Studies in Macedonia.

Prof. Kolar-Panov was a visiting professor at numerous universities worldwide, including the University of Vienna and the University of Zadar, and served as a program director at Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik (IUC) where she taught graduate courses and seminars from 1997 to 2006.

As Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies at the New York University – Skopje (from 2006 to 2011), Prof. Kolar-Panov redesigned the curriculum for the undergraduate degree in Communication and Media Studies and founded and organized the first postgraduate studies in Public Relations, and in Communications and New Media.

Her pioneering work in the field of the New Media and Communication, and in Media and Communications in general, and as well as her interdisciplinary approach in research, resulted in numerous books and other academic publications; the most cited book being Video, War and Diasporic Imagination published by Routledge in 1997 (republished 13 times) and published in paperback edition in 2014.

She organized and chaired two international communication conferences on blogging and social media, held at the New York University, Skopje, in 2008 and 2009, first ones on those topics in Macedonia and Western Balkans.

Prof. Kolar-Panov was a member of the Expert Group for Curriculum Design and Accreditation for the first School of Journalism and Public Relation in Skopje, and a member of the Founding Committees for the School of Journalism and Public Relations, in Skopje (Visoka skola za novinari i odnosi so javnost). She was also the President of Founding Committee for the Institute of Communication Studies, Skopje.

Prof. Kolar-Panov was also a member of the Founding Committee for the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, where she has been teaching courses on graduate- level courses since 2011, and is the President of the Academic Council, since 2014.

Besides her academic activities, Prof. Kolar-Panov served as a member of numerous expert groups, such as the Expert Group for the Foundation of the Broadcasting Council of Macedonia and the Expert Group for the Allocation of the first Broadcasting Licenses to Independent and Commercial Electronic Media in the Republic of Macedonia.

In 2013, Prof. Kolar-Panov received the prestigious international PRO-PR Award for the outstanding contributions in the fields of Communications and Public Relations in South-Eastern Europe and is considered to be the founding professor of Communication and New Media Studies in Macedonia.

She was the Dean of the Faculty of Communications from 2011 to 2014 at International Balkan University in Skopje. In September 2017, Prof. Kolar-Panov was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus of Communication and Media Studies at International Balkan University in Skopje, Macedonia, where she continues teaching at undergraduate and graduate level.

Email: [email protected]
Phone/Fax: +389 2 3113 059

Marijan Petreski is Associate professor of the Post graduate studies of ISSHS and Vice-Dean for Research School of Business Economics and Management at the University American College – Skopje. He specialized in research and education of applied macro-economy. Petreski made his Phd in economy at Staffordshire University, Great Britain in 2011. His research is published in international journals like Journal of Monetary Economics and Finance и International Journal of Economics. He had presentation on international conferences in: Perugia, London, Barcelona, Luxembourg, Munich, Xiamen, Izmir, Chicago and Moscow. For his research he was awarded as young scientist in 2009 by the Macedonian Academy for Sciences and Arts and with Olga Radzyner award in 2010 by the Central Bank of Austria. His academic interest is in monetary politics and international finance.

GORDAN GEORGIEV has been active in the civil sector for 20 years. Georgiev was Executive Director of Forum-CSRD, one of the leading think tanks in Macedonia, and Director of the Macedonian School of Politics, under the auspices of Council of Europe and part of the regional network of Schools of Politics comprising 15 countries from the Balkans, Russia and CIS.

He was also engaged in projects at the _Centre d’Etudes de Relations Internationales (CERI) _in Paris and in the mission of _Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation_’s projects in Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa. He is an expert for Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) and has been working as an expert and independent consultant for Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and other international bodies.

His expertise includes research and field projects on democratic stabilization, reconciliation, inter-ethnic relations, political parties’ reform and consolidation, regional political cooperation, international relations and regional security issues, reform of the parliamentary practices, decentralisation and reform of the local-self government.

From 2009 to 2013, Georgiev was elected as MP in the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia (SDSM), chairing the Committee on Culture.

He holds a BSc and MSc from the _Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris,_ France, in Political Science and International Relations, and he obtained M.A. in European Studies from _King’s College London. _In 2009 he accomplished the Harvard Executive Education programme. Georgiev obtained his PhD in political sciences in 2016, dealing with societal system theories and structures of power.

Apart his contributions in many regional and international journals, Georgiev is a contributing author in “Problems of Representative Democracy in Europe” ed. by Jan Marius Wiersma (2014, Vangennep Amsterdam) and in “Reshaping the image of the political parties in SEE” ed. by Georgi Karasimeonov (2007).

Georgiev is currently Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, FON University Skopje.

Email: [email protected]
Phone/Fax: +389 2 3113 059

Elise Bernard, Public and European Law Lecturer
Holds a PhD in public law from the Sorbonne’s Institute of European Studies. Her thesis, Mutations et transitions de l’Etat contemporain, le cas serbe (Mutations and transitions of the contemporary state, the Serbian case) was published, in 2012, by the French publisher LGDJ. In addition to her academic career marked by nearly 20 publications on the articulation of European and national legal orders, and the direction for 5 years of the CNRS seminar Politique communautaire et réforme de l’Etat en Europe post communiste (European policy and state reform in post-communist Europe), she has organised training courses for civil servants in the Balkans as well as a citizens‘consultation on Europe in Belgrade with students from 11 different countries. Civilian auditor of the 28th promotion of the Ecole de Guerre (War College) de Paris, she currently teaches at the Master Geostrategy Defence and International Security of Sciences Po Aix, at the ESSEC’s MBA and sits as an assessor judge at the National Asylum Court, as a specialist in post-conflict areas. .

Ljupcho Petkovski is a development policy practitioner with formal training in post-structuralist political theory and international relations (University of Essex, University in Skopje, University in Ljubljana). Petkovski has over a decade long experience with working in think-tanks, including at managerial positions (Director of EuroThink Skopje 2017-2020). He has published tens of academic and policy documents, primarily focusing on political ideologies such as populism, authoritarianism and nationalism. His current academic passions concern the links between technological innovation, digitalization, and growth of regressive ideologies.

Agon Hamza, Ph.D. in philosophy is Assistant Professor of political philosophy at the graduate program of Institute. He is the author of Reading Marx (Polity, 2018; with Frank Ruda and Slavoj Žižek), Althusser and Pasolini: Philosophy, Marxism, and Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and From Myth to Symptom: The Case of Kosovo (Kolektivi Materializmi Dialektik, 2013; with Slavoj Žižek). In addition, he is the editor of Althusser and Theology: Religion, Politics and Philosophy (Brill, 2016) and Repeating Žižek (Duke University Press, 2015), as well as coeditor, with Frank Ruda, of Slavoj Žižek and Dialectical Materialism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). He is founder and co-editor (with Frank Ruda) of the international philosophy journal Crisis and Critique. Currently he is working on two books, entitled Reading Hegel (with Slavoj Žižek and Frank Ruda, forthcoming with Polity), and Slavoj Žižek and the Reconstruction of Marxism (forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan). Dr. Hamza is political advisor to Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo.