Karolina Kluczewska is a FWO postdoctoral researcher at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES), and a research associate at the Institute of Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus Studies at the University of St Andrews (UK). Her current research explores evolving understanding of welfare in Poland and Tajikistan. She received her PhD degree in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, where she defended her PhD thesis on development aid in Tajikistan. In recent years, she held research and teaching positions at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Marburg and University of Giessen (Germany), Tajik National University (Tajikistan), Tomsk State University (Russia) and University Sorbonne Paris Nord (France). Karolina also has practical experience in the development sector in Tajikistan, where she worked for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia (EFCA)-Tajikistan. She is a member of an academic network ‘Local Ordering and Peace’ based at the University of Hamburg, which largely focuses on post-Soviet Eurasia.

Aleksey (Oleksiy) Yudin's area of specialization is Slavic ethnolinguistics. His work combines linguistic anthropology, ethno-semiotics, folklore studies, and the study of Slavic traditional religion and magic. He is particularly interested in onomastics, or the study of proper names, in the context of East Slavic magical folklore such as magic charms and Christmas carols.
Prof. Yudin is an expert in Slavic linguistic axiology, which is the study of value systems and language, as well as semantics and conceptual and discourse analysis, in addition to ethnolinguistics.
Membership on the editorial boards of periodicals including "Bulletin of the Orthodox St. Tikhon University," "Folklorica," and "Etnolingwistyka" acknowledges Prof. Yudin's contributions to the study of Slavic ethnolinguistics. He also serves on the International Congress of Slavists' Presidency of the Ethnolinguistic Commission.

Alina Cherviatsova is Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow (research project ‘To Destroy or to Preserve? Monuments, Law and Democracy in Europe’), Human Rights Center, Programme for studies on human rights in context, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University. She is a coordinator of the Jean Monnet Module “On-line Ghent University Academy for Ukrainian Lecturers: EU Law and Policy” (2022-25).
Dr. Cherviatsova has been awarded research fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Max Planck Institute of European Legal History, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law, the University of Turin, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Toronto. She is an alumna of Max Planck Society, US State Department International Exchange Program, and the Swedish Institute.

Before joining Ghent University in May 2021, she was Associate professor of the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, teaching international law, comparative public law, constitutional law of Ukraine, and human rights. She was Vice Dean for International Cooperation, Faculty of Law, an (co)author of applications and coordinator of 3 Jean Monnet Modules at the V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (2014-17, 2018-2021, 2019-2021). She was a co-founder of the Journal of Law of the V. N. Karazin National University and Secretary of its editorial board.

Katsiaryna Lozka is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES). Katsiaryna’s doctoral research focuses on necropolitical violence and resistance in Belarus and Ukraine. She was a research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Belarus Observatory, a visiting researcher at the University of Tartu, and a research fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US. Katsiaryna holds an MA in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges and a Master's degree in European Studies from Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia). Her interests include politics in Belarus and Ukraine, necro/biopolitics, political violence and resistance, emotions in IR, and visual analysis.

Peter Van Elsuwege is professor of EU law and Jean Monnet Chair at Ghent University, where he is co-director of the Ghent European Law Institute (GELI). He is also visiting professor at the College of Europe (Natolin Campus) and board member of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER) at the Asser Institute in The Hague. His research activities essentially focus on the law of EU external relations and EU citizenship. Specific attention is devoted to the legal framework of the relations between the European Union and its East European neighbours. He has published extensively on the legal framework of EU-Ukraine relations and was the supervisor of a PhD thesis (defended by Guillaume Van der Loo) on ‘The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. A New Legal Instrument for EU Integration Without Membership). He also provided several training sessions for Ukrainian civil servants with respect to the process of legal approximation between the EU and Ukraine. Peter Van Elsuwege closely works together with Prof. Roman Petrov, Jean Monnet Chair in EU law at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla. They have several joint publications, focusing on various aspects of EU-Ukraine relations, and co-organised several workshops and conferences on these topics. Finally, professor Van Elsuwege is promotor of the UGent_Academy4UA, a Jean Monnet module devoted to the development of teaching and research in the field of EU law in Ukraine.

Peter Van Elsuwege is professor of EU law and Jean Monnet Chair at Ghent University, where he is co-director of the Ghent European Law Institute (GELI). He is also visiting professor at the College of Europe (Natolin Campus) and board member of the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER) at the Asser Institute in The Hague. His research activities essentially focus on the law of EU external relations and EU citizenship. Specific attention is devoted to the legal framework of the relations between the European Union and its East European neighbours. He is, amongst others, the author of From Soviet Republics to EU Member States. A Legal and Political Assessment of the Baltic States’ Accession to the EU (Brill, 2008) and the editor (together with R. Petrov) of the books Legislative Approximation and Application of EU Law in the Eastern Neighbourhood of the European Union: Towards a Common Regulatory Space? (Routledge, 2014), Post-Soviet Constitutions and Challenges of Regional Integration (Routledge, 2018) and (with F. Bossuyt) Principled Pragmatism in Practice: The EU’s Policy towards Russia after Crimea (Brill, 2021). In addition, he published extensively in leading law journals such as Common Market Law Review, European Law Review, European Constitutional Law Review and others.