Ognyan Minchev, Non-Resident Fellow with the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of GMF, is the Executive Director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies, an independent think tank, providing policy analyses on regional and international security and cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe. Dr. Minchev is also Chair of the Board of Transparency International – Bulgaria, an anti-corruption organization. He is a professor of political science at the University of Sofia – Bulgaria, and has been a Fulbright fellow (1991-1992) with the Department of International Relations at UCLA, and a visiting fellow (1999) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (D.C.).

 Dr. Minchev has lectured in many American and European universities, and is the author of numerous publications on the post-Communist transition of Central and Eastern European countries and issues of international security and cooperation.

 Main areas of interest: democratization and comparative transitions to democracy in the post-communist world; development strategies; modernization and reforms of public institutions; political consciousness and culture in a globalized context; Euro-Atlantic and European integration; regional security and development in the Western Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, and the Black Sea region; transatlantic relations; corruption and organized crime