PRESPA Institute

Andreja graduated at the Faculty of Law of the University Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje with a major in International Law and International Relations and finished his Master’s Studies in EU Law at the University Carlos III in Madrid, as a fellow of the Agency for International Cooperation and Development of the Kingdom of Spain. He is also an Open World Fellow of the Congressional Office for International Leadership and an Exchange Alumni of the State Department.

He has more than two decades of professional experience with Civil Society, as volunteer, activist, advocate, trainer and leader, as well as with Institutions, as a National Legal Expert on numerous projects in the area of Environmental Law, and Teaching Assistant in Higher Education. After graduation, Andreja worked at the Unit for European Integration at the General Secretariat of the Government where he followed the area justice and home affairs, and worked on harmonization of legislation. As part of the think-tank community, from October 2006 to August 2018, he advocated for Europeanisation of Society and EU Accession. In this period, he participated actively in many formal consultative processes with the EU Member States, as well as with the European Commission, while coordinating the chapter on Control over the Police and the Security and (Counter)Intelligence Agencies under the Blueprint for Urgent Reforms within the Blueprint Group. He was a representative to the European Policy Institutes Network (EPIN) and liaison officer for the Trans-European Policy Institutes Network. Due to his civic activism and prominent role in Civil Society, in August 2017 he was elected as constitutive member of the Council for cooperation and development of civil society of the Government of Republic of North Macedonia.

Between 2009 and 2016 he was working part-time as elected Teaching Assistant at the University American College Skopje. From September 2018 until February 2020, upon the invitation of former Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Mr. Zoran Zaev, he joined his Cabinet and the Accession Negotiations Team as Advisor and Deputy to the Chief Technical Negotiator.

Representing PRESPA Institute, he was invited to become a member of the Permanent Strategic Council of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia and of the Project Committee MKD-NATO2030 of the Ministry of Defence, where he chairs the Sub-Committee on Military Diplomacy. As of March 2023, he has been appointed by the OSCE 2023 Chairperson in Office as Special Representative for NGOs.

Andreja Stojkovski is one of the founders of PRESPA Institute, and has been its Executive Director, since February 2020.

She holds a BА in Political Science with a concentration on Transatlantic Relations from the Institute for Political Science in Paris (Sciences Po) and an MA in International Relations from New York University, where she was a Fulbright Fellow.

Her professional experience includes posts in the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she worked on parliamentary oversight and countering and preventing violent extremism. In the period 2017-2018, Ivana was an Adviser for Cooperation with International Organizations to the Prime Minister of North Macedonia.

Ivana is a Senior Research Fellow of PRESPA Institute since December 2020.

He completed his formal education in the field of Economic Sciences, obtained a Ph.D. in Economics, and is now a Tenured Professor at the Faculty of Economics, at the University “St. Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje, where he teaches Quantitative methods in Finance and Statistics (undergraduate studies) and Time Series Analysis and Demographic methods (postgraduate studies). His scientific interests are Macroeconomic Policies, Finance and Foreign Trade. He has published more than 20 papers in scientific journals that are indexed in Web of Science or Scopus.

He is the author of two university textbooks and one book, and the winner of the Annual Research Award of the International Global Development Network for examining the interactions of Fiscal and Monetary Policies in countries with a Fixed Exchange Rate (in 2012). In 2015, he was chosen as the Best Scientist at the University “St. Cyril and Methodius” in the field of Social Sciences, and in the same year, based on a survey on the Fakulteti.mk portal, he was chosen as one of the Most Inspiring Professors in North Macedonia. Later in 2020, in a student’s poll, he was chosen as one of the professors with the best online lectures in the country.

From June 2017 to June 2019, he was Minister of Finance in the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia, and in the period 2020-2022 he was Advisor to the Executive Director of the IMF in Washington D.C.

Professor Tevdovski is a Senior Research Fellow at the PRESPA Institute since October 2022.

He completed his formal education in the field of Political Sciences, obtained his Ph.D. in Political Sciences, and since 2020 is a Tenured Professor at the Faculty of Law “Justinianus Primus” in Skopje. At the Political Studies he teaches Political Theories, Civil Society, Political Philosophy, Good Governance and Management, Political Culture and Political Mythology.

Professor Markovikj is former president of the Macedonian Political Science Society and one of the founders of the Balkan Political Science Association (BPSA), as well as one of the founders of the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” – Skopje (IDSCS). He is a member of the editorial board of the magazine “Political Thought” published by the “Konrad Adenauer” Foundation – Skopje and IDSCS. Since 2019, Prof. Markovikj is a member of the National Security Council.

Professor Markovikj is a Senior Research Fellow at the PRESPA Institute since October 2022.

He is а PhD candidate and Barnett Scholar of Social Policy at the University of Oxford, where he is exploring the Discursive Framing, Child Cost Replacement, and Fertility Effects of generous child benefits in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Beside his DPhil, he is working for Prof. Timothy Garton Ash as a part-time Research Assistant on Young People’s expectations of the European Union.

He earned his undergraduate degree in Politics and East European Studies from University College London in 2017 and a graduate degree in Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies from Georgetown University in 2019. Professionally, he has worked for USAID’s Office for Transition Initiatives in Skopje, interned for the American Bar Association in Washington, D.C, and taught as a Guest Lecturer at the University American College in Skopje.

Kristijan has written for New Eastern Europe, Balkan Insight, Oxford Political Review, Quillette, The New Federalist, and The Vostokian, as well as the Macedonian-language publications Respublika and Okno. He recently co-authored two book chapters for Routledge on EU accession and conspiracy theories in North Macedonia under the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) initiative.

Kristijan is a Research Fellow at PRESPA Institute since October 2021.

He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science at Middlebury College in Vermont, USA, and completed Master’s Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he specializes in Comparative Political Psychology and Quantitative Methods. His research interests are the Psychological Mechanisms that underlie Illiberal Attitudes and Behaviors such as Intolerance of people with Different Identities and Opinions.

In June 2022, he was one of the thirty Young Researchers in Social Sciences in the United States to receive an Inaugural Dissertation Research Grant from the Russell Sage Foundation. With the start of the academic year 2022-2023, as a recipient of a one-year research grant from DAAD – German Academic Exchange Service, he started his residency with the Social Psychology Laboratory of Dr. Melanie Steffens at the University of Landau in Germany.

Outside of academia, Martin has worked as a researcher for USAID and the Prague Institute for Security Studies. He was also a Data Analyst Consultant to the Minister of Foreign Affars, a Research Assistant at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and in 2017-2018 a First Amendment Fellow at the Hearst Media Corporation in New York.

Martin is a Research Fellow at the PRESPA Institute since June 2022.

She is a Ph.D. Student at the Faculty of Law “Iustinianus Primus” at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, where she graduated and in 2016 earned an MA in the field of Law of the European Union, Chapter 23 and Enlargement.

Leposava has more than 6 years of professional experience. She has been working on numerous international projects in various think-tanks related to democratic governance and the rule of law. In 2016, she was engaged as a young researcher within the TRAIN Programme conducted by the German Council on Foreign Relations from Berlin. She has passed the Bar Exam and earned a title Juris Doctor, and worked in the judiciary and prosecution on cases of organized crime and high corruption.

Leposava is a Senior Research Fellow of PRESPA Institute since December 2020.

He graduated at the FON University in Skopje, while as a student of the International Double Degree Programme of the Faculty of Law “Iustinianus Primus” at the University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje with the University of Strasbourg, he earned a Master’s Degree in Intellectual Property Law. In 2020 he passed the Bar Exam, earning a Juris Doctor title.

At present, Martin is engaged on a project of the United Nations Development Program and the Regional Cooperation Council, under the frames of the Berlin Process dedicated to Chapter 24 – Freedom, Security and Justice. He has several years of professional experience on projects and in research related to implementation of the EU acquis in North Macedonia, with an emphasis on the areas of employment and social policy, and justice and fundamental rights. In a period of one year, as of October 2016, he completed a Traineeship at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in Alicante, Spain. After the establishment, over a period of 10 months, beginning in March 2019 he was engaged with the project unit at the Office of the Chief Technical Negotiator for EU Accession.

Martin is one of the founders of PRESPA Institute and was elected as first Chairman of the Institute’s Assembly.

He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science at the Institute of Political Sciences of the University of Vienna. At present he is studying for his Master’s Degree at said institute.

In the period September-December 2022, he interned at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy, while in the period 2020-2021 he interned at the PRESPA Institute. His research interests include the Euro-Atlantic security nexus and NATO and the EU Common Security and Defense Policy.

Darko is a Research Assistant at the PRESPA Institute since June 2022.