IGA’s expert network encompasses leading international researchers, whose specializations span different regions of the world (e.g. Europe, East Asia) and varied thematic issue areas (security, gender, political economy).
Expert Network
Dr. Mathias Ormestad Frendem
Dr. Mathias Ormestad Frendem is an expert in the field of international security. His main research focuses on great power politics, looking in particular at how the interaction of power and geography shapes great power choices about alliances and war. Other research projects investigate competition for influence, grand bargains, and trade wars. Dr. Frendem has been a Henry Chauncey Jr. ’57 Postdoctoral Fellow at International Security Studies at Yale University and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He earned his DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, Nuffield College in 2016. In addition, he received an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a BA in International Studies and Economics at the University of Oslo. He has also worked at the Norwegian Permanent Mission to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and Royal Norwegian Embassy in the Hague.
Dr. Jaemin Shim
Dr. Jaemin Shim is Assistant Professor at the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. Prior to his current position, he was a Fritz-Thyssen postdoctoral research fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Tokyo. His primary research interests lie in democratic representation, comparative welfare states, gender and legislative politics and is currently leading the Global Mass-Elite Discrepancy (GMED) project. He holds an MPhil and DPhil in politics at the University of Oxford, and his works have appeared or are forthcoming in international journals including Democratization, European Political Science, Journal of Women, Politics and Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, and Journal of Legislative Studies.
Dr. Plamen Ivanov
Dr. Plamen Ivanov is Assistant Professor in Banking and Economics and PG Portfolio Programme Leader at the Faculty of Business, Law and Digital Technologies, University of Winchester. His research focuses on the role of credit institutions in economic development. He examines the evolution of leading monetary ecosystems (e.g. Britain, Germany and China) through space and time, documenting the importance of the purpose of bank credit as an explanatory variable in economic development. Dr. Ivanov is a financial services advisor with more than 8 years of experience in capital and liquidity management, risk management and regulatory compliance services to C-Suite Executives of international credit firms in the UK (including FS Advisory, BDO LLP; Local First CIC). He obtained his PhD from the University of Southampton and his works have been published by, among others, Edward Elgar press, additionally serving as a peer reviewer for a range of academic journals such as Review of Political Economy, International Journal of Finance and Economics, British Academy of Management.
Plamen Tonchev
Mr Plamen Tonchev has been Head of Asia Unit at the Institute of International Economic Relations (IIER), Greece, since 1998. Since September 2020, he has been a European China Policy Fellow at the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies (MERICS). As an IIER representative, Plamen is a founding member of the European Think-tank Network on China (ETNC). In addition, he sits on the EU Chapter of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (EU CSCAP) committee. Mr Tonchev has published books on Japan, India and Pakistan, as well as articles in academic journals on political/economic co-operation between Europe and Asia. Mr. Tonchev’s work on China dates back to the 1990s, when he co-authored the monograph “China in East Asia: From Isolation to a Regional Superpower Status” (IIER, 1998). The list of his recent publications on China includes: “China’s Soft Power in Europe” (co-author, ETNC, 2021); “Impact of COVID-19 on ASEM Connectivity” (co-author, European Commission, 2020); “Sino-Greek Relations in Greek and Chinese Media, 2020” (IIER, 2021); “China’s Soft Power in Southeast Europe” (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2020); “Chinese Investment in Greek and Sri Lankan Sea Ports: Analogies and Lessons Learned” (Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute, 2019); “China’s Shift to a New Economic Model: From Quantitative to Qualitative Growth?” (Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, 2019); “Along the Road: Sri Lanka’s Tale of Two Ports” (EU Institute for Security Studies, 2018), etc.
Dr. Vinicius Guilherme Rodrigues Vieira
Dr. Vinícius Guilherme Rodrigues Vieira is an Associate Professor of Economics and International Relations at the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation (FAAP), a liberal arts college in São Paulo, Brazil. He is also a guest lecturer at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), the leading think-tank of Latin America, and a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of International Negotiations of the University of São Paulo (CAENI-USP). Dr. Rodrigues Vieira holds a doctorate in International Relations from Nuffield College, University of Oxford (2015), and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley (2010). He has a B.A. in Journalism from the University of São Paulo (2007), where he was a Visiting Professor (2017-2020) and a Post-Doctoral Researcher (2015-2017). Dr. Rodrigues Vieira also obtained a Certificate on Race, Development, and Social Inequality from Vanderbilt University (2004), and attended Yale University (2012) as an exchange scholar at the Department of Political Science. At Princeton University, he was a Fung Global Fellow (2016-2017). Between 2015 and 2017, he held a Non-Residential Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Dr. Rodrigues Vieira has served as the secretary of the research committee on International Political Economy of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) since 2015 and contributes regularly to the blog Entendendo Bolsonaro, hosted by UOL, the largest Brazilian web portal.
Dr. Maria Popova
Dr. Maria Popova is a Jean Monnet Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University in Montreal. She is also the Scientific Co-Director of the Jean Monnet Centre Montreal. She holds a BA in Spanish Literature and Government from Dartmouth College (1997) and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (2006). Dr. Popova has lived and conducted research across Eastern Europe and Eurasia in its various regime incarnations—from growing up in Bulgaria before 1989, through interviewing judges and lawyers in Russia and Ukraine for dissertation research in the 2000s, to her current attempt to disentangle real from fake anti-corruption efforts in Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine. Her work explores the intersection of politics and law in the post-Communist region, specifically the rule of law, judicial reform, political corruption, populist parties, and legal repression of dissent.
Dr. Popova currently serves as an elected member of the board of ASEEES, the largest association of scholars (historians, literary scholars, political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists) who work on Eastern Europe and Eurasia. She also writes for a broader audience on rule of law issues in Russia, Ukraine, and the Eastern European EU members. Her opinion pieces and analysis have appeared in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, Kyiv Post and others. She is a member of the PONARS Eurasia policy analysis network.
Dr. Goran Ilik
Dr. Goran Ilik is a full professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law at St. Kliment Ohridski University in Bitola, North Macedonia. His academic background includes a BA in Law (International Law and International Relations), an MA in Political Science (European Union Studies), and PhD in Political Science with a specific focus on the European Union’s foreign, security and defense policy. Dr. Ilik is a lecturer/trainer at the State Academy of Judges and Public Prosecutors “Pavel Shatev” – Skopje (North Macedonia). Also, he is co-founder of the Institute for Research and European Studies – Bitola and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Liberty and International Affairs. Since October 2019, Dr. Ilik has been engaged as an expert in the project ANETREC which is focused on academic cooperation and post-conflict reconciliation in the Western Balkans. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Mediterranea International Centre for Human Rights Research in Italy (2020-2021). In August 2021, Dr. Ilik became a coordinator of the sub-thematic area International Public Law at the post-doctoral program in “New Technologies and Law”, promoted by the Mediterranea International Centre for Human Rights Research at the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria (Italy).
Milka Dimitrovska
Milka Dimitrovska is a PhD candidate in International Law and Politics at the Faculty of Law at St. Kliment Ohridski University in Bitola, North Macedonia, where she has been a research and teaching assistant in the subjects EU’s legal and political system, constitutional law and local government. She holds a BA with a concentration on legal studies at St. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje and an LLM degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade. Currently, Milka Dimitrovska is a research assistant in EU law and human rights at the Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research at St. Cyril and Methodius University. She has a 12-year research career in the field of human rights, democracy, good governance and EU policies and is engaged in civil societal development by working for NGOs and frequently participating in public and expert debates and conferences.
Dr. Jagannath Panda
Dr. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Sweden. He is also the Director for Europe-Asia Research Cooperation at the YCAPS; Senior Fellow at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS), The Hague; and an International Research Fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS) in Japan. Dr. Panda participates as Senior Fellow at IGA.