STRATEGO Visiting Researchers

Every year, the STRATEGO Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence welcomes visiting scholars. They are offered the opportunity to conduct their research at STRATEGO and to participate at the Centre’s activities. Specifically, the programme is targeted at early-career researchers working within STRATEGO’s areas of research and wishing to conduct a short research visit at University of Antwerp.

STRATEGO aims to develop a joint research agenda on sustainability, trust and European multi-level governance with the purpose of generating knowledge and insights in support of EU policymaking. In this context, STRATEGO is committed to hosting external early-career researchers for short research visits of up to 2 months at the University of Antwerp. There will be a two-way transfer of knowledge between the visiting scholars and the STRATEGO Centre, benefiting from each other’s expertise. Visiting scholars will be hosted by one of the participating research groups. STRATEGO will fund travel and accommodation costs up to € 1.600,00 for each of the selected candidates. STRATEGO will also offer office space and full access to campus facilities. Each year, following a call, up to 5 candidates will be selected for a research visit.

The 2026 call for visiting researchers is now open!

Dionys Zink

Dionys Zink is a doctoral researcher at Ludwigs-Maximilians University in Munich (Germany). Currently, he is working in the ERC Horizon 2020 funded ACCUPOL project. Among others, the project and his dissertation address the question of how government agencies deal with policy accumulation. Prior to joining Prof. Dr. Christoph Knill and his team as a researcher, he obtained Master's degrees from Ludwigs-Maximilians University and Stockholm University.

In September 2024, Dionys is hosted by STRATEGO and the Politics & Public Governance research group under the supervision of prof. Koen Verhoest.

Marie-Charlott Petersdorf

​Marie-Charlott Petersdorf is a PhD candidate at the Animal Ecology and Physiology Department of the Radboud University in Nijmegen (Netherlands). Her PhD project focuses mainly on the restoration of old oak forests, a N2000 Habitat type (H9190), which suffers from decades of extensive Nitrogen deposition. 

In September 2024, Marie-Charlott is hosted by STRATEGO and the Plant and Ecosystems (PLECO) research group under the supervision of prof. Sara Vicca.

Marie-Thérèse Wilhelm

Marie-Thérèse Wilhem is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (Spain). Her research broadly ties together multilevel implementation dynamics with subnational administrative capacity, politics, and legitimacy of the EU and its policies. In her PhD thesis, she examines noncompliance to EU environmental directives from a multilevel perspective, for which one of the theoretical explanations on why implementation faulters and can lead to noncompliance is a lack of legitimacy of the EU and its policies in the Member states. She holds a B.A. in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy, a B.A. in French language, and a minor degree in Philosophy and Law. She obtained a Trilingual Master’s degree in European and International Relations from the European Institute: Centre International de Formation Européen. Previously, she has worked with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the Policies and Standards Branch as an Individual Consultant in the New York office. Marie-Thérèse also holds the degree qualification of Policy Officer in European and International Organizations recognized by the French state at level 7 of the European Qualifications Framework EQF.

From September to December 2024, Marie-Thérèse is hosted by STRATEGO and the Politics & Public Governance research group under the supervision of prof. Peter Bursens.

Francisco Javier Romero Caro

​Francisco Javier Romero Caro (PhD) is Senior Researcher at the Eurac Research Institute for Comparative Federalism in Bolzano/Bozen (Italy). He has served as an international expert at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek and for CMI in Moldova. His research interests encompass fiscal federalism, the territorial distribution of powers in multilevel systems (with a special focus on federal states) and the territorial integration of national minorities in secessionist contexts such as Canada or Spain. He won the XVII "Manuel Giménez Abad" Award and the European Commission awarded him with the Seal of Excellence in the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie call in a joint application with Eurac Research in a project on fiscal federalism and diversity accommodation. He has been a visiting researcher at the CEPC, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law, the University of Ottawa and the University of Edinburgh. He is author of peer-reviewed articles such as Equalization and territorial integration in Canada: a nation building instrument? (Perspectives on Federalism), The Quasi-federal System of Spain (Encyclopedia of Contemporary Constitutionalism), La reforma del proceso de selección y nombramiento de los magistrados del Tribunal Supremo de Canadá: el caso particular de Quebec (Teoría y Realidad Constitucional), Senado y sistema federal en Canadá: ¿imposibilidad de una reforma deseable? (Revista de Estudios Políticos) and The Spanish vision of Canada’s Clarity Act: from idealization to myth (Perspectives on Federalism).

In October 2024, Francisco is hosted by STRATEGO and the Government & Law research group under the supervision of prof. Patricia Popelier.

Julia Trautendorfer

​Julia Trautendorfer is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Public and Nonprofit Management at Johann es Kepler University (JKU) Linz, Austria. She holds a PhD in Social and Economic Sciences from JKU and studied International Business at the University of Vienna and WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. Her research interests include government transparency, Freedom of Information, and citizen-state interaction.

In October 2024, Julia is hosted by STRATEGO, the GOVTRUST Centre of Excellence and the Politics & Public Governance research group under the supervision of prof. Koen Verhoest.

Anton Berezutskii

Anton Berezutskii is a PhD student in Public Policy at the Central European University (CEU), Vienna. His dissertation focuses on studying advocacy coalitions in the German natural gas sector. In particular, he focused on groups associated with the proliferation of the Russian pipeline gas supply in recent decades and seeks to answer the question of why Germany became so dependent on a single supplier and how this affected its energy security. For his research, he applies a mixed-methods approach and uses process tracing, discourse and social network analysis.

From October to November 2024, Anton is hosted by STRATEGO and the International Politics research group under the supervision of prof. Dirk De Bièvre.

Pratyush Nath Upreti

Dr. Pratyush Nath Upreti is an Associate Professor in Law in the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast. He serves as the Programme Director of LLM in Intellectual Property Law. He is a Research Affiliate at Sciences Po Paris and the Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki. Prior to his appointment at Queen’s University Belfast, he held positions at the Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Law, Munich. From 2018 to 2023, he was a fellow at Stanford Law School, Transatlantic Technology Law Forum (TTLF). He was a visiting scholar at National University Singapore in August 2024 and Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore. Before moving to academia, he practiced law and appeared before the Supreme Court of Nepal and sub-ordinate courts; has taught in Nepal and continues to advise and write on legal and policy issues related to Nepal.

From May to July 2025, Pratyush is hosted by STRATEGO and the Government & Law research group under the supervision of prof. Esther van Zimmeren.

Leonardo Pasqui

Leonardo Pasqui is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bologna. He earned his Law degree in 2018 and later completed a two-month research stay at King’s College London under the Erasmus+ Traineeship, supervised by Prof. Andrea Biondi. In 2023, he obtained a Ph.D. in European Law from the University of Bologna with a thesis on territorial inequalities in the EU. He now works on the project “Federal State vs Regional State: Gender Inequalities in Different Institutional Architectures”. In September 2023, he conducted research as a visiting scholar at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, guided by Prof. Gaelle Marti. His academic journey includes participation in numerous national and international conferences, alongside active involvement in European research projects. His research interests mainly focus on territorial disparities, gender equality, multilevel governance, and social rights.

From April to May 2025, Leonardo is hosted by STRATEGO and the Government & Law research group under the supervision of prof. Patricia Popelier.

Federico Cuomo

Federico Cuomo is a post-doc research fellow at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society of the University of Turin and collaborates with the Socioeconomic Research Institute of Piedmont (IRES). His research interests concern the analysis of environmental and social policies with a special focus on multilevel governance, collaborative urban experimentations and the role of bureaucrats. Recently, he foccuses on the context-related mechanisms of collaborative governance, namely the factors that can favour the consolidation of high-cooperative network composed of public administrations, private companies, NGOs and citizens interested in achieving common policy goals. Meanwhile, he carries out teaching support activities in policy analysis (undergraduate course) and coordinates a laboratory for master students entitled 'Public Administration and European Projects' at the University of Turin. He has collaborated with research groups at the University of Madrid, Amsterdam and Budapest.

In February and March 2025, Federico is hosted by STRATEGO and the Politics & Public Governance research group under the supervision of prof. Wouter Van Dooren.

Sen Lin

Sen Lin is a PhD student in political science at University of Exeter, with a keen interest in perceived trustworthiness, (dis)trust, public service coproduction and behavioural public administration. His research focuses on understanding how trust and distrust in government influence citizen behaviours and policy outcomes in urban governance. By integrating insights from psychology and public administration, he aims to explore mechanisms that enhance cooperation between citizens and governments and how trust or distrust play roles in such process. In addition, he also focuses on framing effects and is interested in exploring how citizens' perceived trustworthiness of governments influences the role of policy information frames. He has published several related articles in international academic journals (SSCI) and presented his research at conferences such as IRSPM and UKAPA.

From May to November 2025, Sen is hosted by STRATEGO and the Politics & Public Governance research group under the supervision of prof. Koen Verhoest.

Idunn Nørbech

Idunn Nørbech is a political scientist at the University of Bergen studying how bureaucratic policymakers engage with stakeholders and interest groups during policymaking, focusing particularly on public consultations as venues for participation and influence. She works with quantitative text analysis and consultation data to understand patterns of stakeholder engagement in policymaking. For her PhD, she explored how public consultations function as instruments for building legitimacy in policymaking processes, drawing on data from Norway and the European Union. This research has led to publications in the Journal of European Public Policy and European Union Politics. In her current postdoctoral work on the "Representing the Future in an Aging Europe" project, she investigates youth representation in policymaking - specifically looking at how youth advocacy groups engage with public consultations and whether they provide meaningful channels for representing young people's interests between elections.

In October 2025, Idunn is hosted by STRATEGO and the Politics & Public Governance research group under the supervision of prof. Peter Bursens.