2024

Gürkan Özturan works as the Media Freedom Monitoring Officer of Media Freedom Rapid Response, at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom in Germany's Leipzig. Özturan was trained in the field of European Studies as a researcher on radicalisation and polarisation during his masters degrees at Centre International de Formation Europeenne and Istanbul Bilgi University. Özturan previously worked as a journalist and executive manager at dokuz8NEWS and frequently appeared on international media as commentator on Turkey and digital rights and liberties.

Beata Balogová is editor-in-chief of the SME daily newspaper [2], one of the major independent dailies in the Slovak Republic. She joined SME in 2014, having previously been editor of Slovakia's English-language weekly The Slovak Spectator from 2003 to 2014. Beata was a Fulbright scholar of the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia and she also holds a master's degree in journalism from the School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York.

Ljupcho Petkovski, currently serving as the director of Innhub (Skopje) and a former director of Eurothink, is a distinguished figure in the sphere of policy research and non-governmental organization management in the SEE region. With formal education in political science and years of experience working in and leading think tanks, Petkovski has developed a keen expertise in confidence-building processes among diverse stakeholders.