I am also a Research Fellow at the Institute of Political Sociology, at the Czech Academy of Sciences as part of the SYRI Project. I’m a former MSCA Fellow (Oct. 2017- Sep. 2021) and I hold a Ph.D. in Public and Social Policy from Charles University in Prague as part of the PLATO Innovative Network (European Union Funding for Research & Innovation) of nine universities and a group of leading European research centers. My research lines bring together multidisciplinary research in EU contemporary politics with a focus on EU democratic legitimacy, democratization, Europeanization and state transformation in Western and Eastern societies. My research examines the aspects of political and economic transformations, both in Western and Eastern societies as part of the EU integration process, the role of the political parties in the contemporary ways of doing politics in Europe and the crises of democratic legitimation on nation-state level.