Donika Emini, PhD, is a policy researcher and scholar specialising in democratic governance, political developments, and security in Europe, with expertise spanning Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe. She is a Research Fellow at the University of Graz.

Her work bridges academic research and policy engagement, focusing on democratic backsliding, EU enlargement, external influence, and institutional resilience across Europe. It informs ongoing European debates on governance and security through research and analysis.

Donika was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC. She has held research and expert positions with the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), the Council of Europe, and Freedom House, including work on cybersecurity governance and EU alignment in the Eastern Partnership countries.

She previously served as Executive Director of the CiviKos Platform, Kosovo’s largest civil society network, where she led efforts to strengthen civil society participation in policymaking and advance transparency and accountability frameworks. Prior to this, she worked at the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS), where she led research programmes on security sector reform, EU integration, and regional cooperation.

Her research focuses on EU foreign policy, conflict management and negotiations, including the EU-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, and security cooperation between the EU and its neighbouring regions.