Civil Society

Irina Neagu is a Bucharest-based program manager. She oversees multi-country initiatives in the Eastern Partnership and Black Sea regions that focus on strengthening democratic governance, civil society resilience, and cross-border cooperation.

Neagu's portfolio spans grantmaking in the two regions for capacity-building programs that support civil society actors in the South Caucasus especially those focused on institutional resilience and cross-border dynamics in the Black Sea region.

Neagu serves as president of a Romanian NGO dedicated to civic education and youth engagement. She holds a master’s degree in comparative politics and a bachelor’s degree in international relations and European studies from the University of Bucharest.

Dimitar Keranov is a visiting fellow with GMF’s European Resilience program. His areas of expertise are democratization and Eastern European, especially Bulgarian, politics, on which he has written articles and been quoted in the media. Prior to joining GMF, he worked at the Institut für Europäische Politik in Berlin and in the private sector.

Keranov holds a PhD in political science from Varna Free University “Chernorizets Hrabar”, a Master’s degree in governance from the University of Hagen and a Bachelor’s degree in political science from the Free University of Berlin. In addition to his native Bulgarian, he speaks English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Croatian, Serbian, Russian, Sesotho, Czech, and Afrikaans. He is Think Tank Lab fellow and a member of the National Capital Area Political Science Association (USA).