Team

Agnieszka Turska- Kawa

Project Leader
Political scientist, psychologist, director of the Institute of Political Science. Coordinator and researcher in numerous grants, including in both scientific and research (Horizon Europa, NCN, COST CA15207, NCBiR, Ministry of Regional Development) and social projects implemented in cooperation with local government units (EDIH). Winner of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education scholarship for outstanding young scientists. Deputy head of the Research Center for Public Policy and Regulatory Governance (www.cbpr.us.edu.pl). Her scientific interests include the psychology of politics, particularly in the context of political behaviour. She is interested in motivations and emotions ruling politics, cognitive aspects of political choices, and broadly understood pathologies of democracy.
ORCID: 0000-0002-2748-7037

Miro Haček

Project Co-Leader
Professor at the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences. From 2005 to 2007 and 2013 to 2017 he was the Head of political science department; from 2007 to 2011 he was also Head of policy analysis and public administration department at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana. From 1999 to 2009 he was General Secretary of the Slovenian Political Science Association, while in May 2009 he was elected President of the Association and in June 2011 for the vice-president of the Association. Between 2012-2018 he served as the Vice-President of Central European Political Science Association (CEPSA), and from 2018 he is current President of the Association. In 2020 he is Fulbright S-I-R Fellow at Black Hills State University (BHSU), US. He was visiting professor to Montana State University Billings (2022), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2018), University of Johannesburg (summer 2018), Hong Kong Baptist University (2005, 2007), South Dakota State University (2009, 2010), Hughes Hall, Cambridge (2001) and De Montfort University, Leicester (2016). He is Editor-In-Chief of international Journal of Comparative Politics. He has published many scientific articles, papers and books in the Slovenian and English languages.
ORCID: 0000-0003-1339-067X

Irena Pilch

Psychologist, habilitated doctor of social sciences. She conducts research at the Institute of Psychology of the University of Silesia in Katowice. She authored over sixty scientific papers. Her scientific interests are centered on the intersection of personality psychology with social psychology, clinical psychology, and organizational psychology. She also does research on political psychology. Between 2016 and 2019 she headed the Department of Clinical and Forensic Psychology, and then, between 2019 and 2022, she served as a director of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Silesia.
ORCID: 0000-0002-4471-1993

Simona Kukovič

An associate professor at the School of Advanced Social Studies in Nova Gorica and at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her area of expertise is public leadership, comparative regional and local government, local democracy and participation, public administration, political processes and institutions. She is Slovenian representative to the COST networks, a member of the executive board of the Central European Political Science Association (CEPSA) and general editor of the Journal of Comparative Politics. In 2022, she received the title of Jean Monnet Chair and established the Summer Leadership Academy. Dr. Kukovič has been a visiting professor/researcher at several universities (including DeMontfort University, UK, Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Austria, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, Montana State University, USA) and is (co-)author of numerous national and international scientific publications.
ORCID: 0000-0003-3717-9019

Paweł Matuszewski

An associate professor (PhD with habilitation) at Collegium Civitas University (Warsaw, Poland). In 2007 he received a Masters Degree in sociology at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University (Warsaw, Poland), in 2010 he defended his PhD dissertation (sociology) at Collegium Civitas and in 2020 he habilitated (sociology) at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University. From 2011 to 2020, Matuszewski was an assistant professor at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University and the head of the Department of Political Sociology (2014-2020). Since 2022 he is a deputy chair of Institute of Sociology at Collegium Civitas. Matuszewski has expertise in public opinion, political communication, political behaviour, social network analysis, digital behaviour and opinion mining. In his works, he focuses on mechanisms that explain social phenomena. He is an experienced researcher who participated in 19 research projects in cooperation with academia, business, trade unions, NGOs, and political parties. He is skilled in qualitative and quantitative methodology, data mining, opinion mining, statistics (frequentist and Bayesian approach), and machine learning. You can find him at Twitter (@m_matuszewski) and YouTube (owner of ‘To socjologiczne’)
ORCID: 0000-0003-0069-157X

Patrycja Bełtowska

Graduated in cultural studies (Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University in Kraków), maritime transport (Faculty of Navigation, Maritime University of Technology in Szczecin), finance and accounting and management (Faculty of Economics, Finance and Management, University of Szczecin). Doctoral student at the Doctoral School of the University of Szczecin in the discipline of economics and finance. Participant in postgraduate studies in project management at the Warsaw School of Economics. Her scientific interests include alternative investments, behavioral finance, CSR, socially responsible investments and consumer psychology. Author of scientific publications, editor of peer-reviewed scientific monographs, speaker at dozens of national and international scientific conferences. Member of research teams, contractor in research grants (NCN, Interreg), scholarship holder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (completion of the Leading Digital Transformation course), member of organisational committees and scientific councils of international and national scientific conferences. Member of scientific and self-governmental doctoral organisations.
ORCID: 0000-0001-5771-6091

Tine Steger

Currently serving as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Defence Research Centre of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences, and his Master’s degree from the University of Maribor, Faculty of Business and Economics. Tine’s research interests are focused on contemporary societal developments, with a particular emphasis on the local level. Before joining the Defence Research Centre, Tine Šteger acquired invaluable practical knowledge and experience through various internships, international conferences, and study visits across Europe, Africa, and North America He completed internships at the Institute for Political Management (IPM) in Ljubljana and at the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Slovenia to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.