Email: Adrian.Florea@glasgow.ac.uk

An expert in Transinistria, Dr Adrian Florea (PhD Indiana University) is a Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences and Convener of the Global Security Program at the University of Glasgow. He is currently engaged in three large research projects. The first investigates the survival and disappearance of post-WWII de facto states (breakaway entities, like Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia, Somaliland, Transnistria, or Western Sahara). The second analyses the variation in governance activities conducted by insurgent organisations. The third examines the link between ‘dark’ networks and civil war processes.

Email: b.bowring@bbk.ac.uk

Prof Bowring has experience in Moldova dating back to 2004 when he travelled to the country on a week-long three-prison mission on behalf of the Centre for Independence of Judges and Lawyers. The outcome of the visit was a 14,000 word Report, entitled ‘The Rule of Law in Moldova’. During the visit, Prof Bowing met with senior members of the government and judiciary, academics, lawyers and representatives of NGOs. Over the years he has worked on a number of projects involving Moldova and in 2014 published a book chapter, ‘Transnistria’. Please see the following link for a full breakdown of Prof Bowring’s work in Moldova. Bill Bowring Experience in Moldova.docx.

Email: Federica.Prina@glasgow.ac.uk

Federica Prina is a Research Associate at the School of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Glasgow. She is part of a team implementing the three years (2014-2017) research project ‘National Minority Rights and Democratic Political Community: Practices of Non-Territorial Autonomy in Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Her field of research encompasses cultural, linguistic and participatory rights of national minorities in the post-Soviet space, particularly the Russian Federation, Moldova, Estonia and Ukraine. From 2011 to 2013 she was a researcher at the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), in Flensburg (Germany), where she coordinated the research cluster ‘Culture and Diversity’. From 2012 to 2014 she was the editor of the Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe (JEMIE). Federica Prina has also worked for human rights organisations, including Article 19 (the Global Campaign for Free Expression), Amnesty International and Minority Rights Group.

Email: info@michaelhindley.co.uk

Michael Hindley spent 25 years in elected politics, including three terms as a Euro-MP, when he served as Vice-President of the Trade Committee, and he is a frequent commentator on European and International Politics. He has authored two reports over recent years for the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on “EU/Central Asia Relations” both of which had “human rights” chapters and both reports involved arranging hearings where NGOs made presentations about human rights in Central Asia. He has been an election observer for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Kazakhstan. He has also acted as an OSCE observer in other post-Soviet countries namely Moldova, Belarus, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine and been a guest lecturer in Russia and Ukraine. He was was a Member of the European Parliament from 1984 – 1999.