Samir Beharić serves as Programme Manager for Research, Policy and Advocacy at the European Fund for the Balkans. He shapes credible EU accession dialogue by ensuring that rigorous analysis and expert insight are translated into effective advocacy contributions to debates at European level and among political and institutional actors across the Western Balkans. His portfolio includes the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG), which he coordinates.
Samir's professional experience includes serving as a Lantos Congressional Fellow at the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C., completing a Schuman Traineeship at the European Parliament in Brussels, and working as a Research Officer at the Balkan Forum in Prishtina.
His human rights activism earned recognition from the OSCE, which awarded him the Max van der Stoel Award for his work in preventing ethnic segregation in schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has also been active in environmental advocacy, successfully opposing the construction of small hydroelectric power plants in central Bosnia.
Samir holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of Sarajevo, during which he studied abroad at universities in Berlin, Samsun, and Rome. He later completed an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's Degree in Global Studies at the University of Vienna and Leipzig University. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Bamberg. He is a native speaker of Bosnian and fluent in English and German.
EU-WB relations, democratization, human rights, environment, activism, migration
Bosnian, English and German