Our Team
Through the Project Thales II, a rare and valuable opportunity is provided to us, to support the NGO ecosystem in Greece and generate a positive change for the Greek society in general
Project Τeam
Anastasis Valvis holds a PhD from the department of Political Science and International Relations, University of the Peloponnese. Previously he has studied political science with specialization in International and European studies at the University of Athens and International Politics and Security at the University of Bradford, UK. Dr. Valvis has worked as a research fellow for two years at the South-East Europe Program of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and for three years at the Institute of International Economic Relations (IIER). His research interests include environmental politics, NGOs role in global governance, Western Balkans EU accession and the social and economic development of the developing world. He has participated in more than ten international academic conferences in Greece and abroad, while he has published articles in peer reviewed journals and edited volumes. Dr. Valvis, participated in the project Thales I as member of the team visiting more than 100 NGOs in Athens and in Northern Greece. Currently he works for the Athens Development and Destination Management Agency as part of the Accommodation for Asylum Seekers project, while he also teaches at the University of the Peloponnese.
Ioanna Natsi was born in Athens in 1984. She is a graduate of the European School of Luxembourg and the Law School of Athens. She speaks French, English and Italian. She has attended a number of seminars and workshops on human rights issues, asylum, etc. She has worked in maritime law cases and deals with issues of immigration law and human rights. She is a member of the Group of Lawyers for the Rights of Migrants and Refugees and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the "Greek Council for Refugees".
Aris Souras was born in Athens in 1982. He studied Political Science and Public Administration at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and he holds a Master’ s Degree in Marketing & Management from the University of Bradford. From 2008 to 2014, Aris worked at the Marketing & Communications department of Ernst & Young in Greece. From 2014 to 2015, he was a key lecturer at the capacity building seminars titled “Planning, Implementation and Evaluation of Developmental Programs”, which were organized by the University of the Peloponnese, with the support of the Stavros Niarchos’ Foundation, and were attended by more than 200 NGO executives around Greece. Since 2014, Aris is also a Marketing Mentor at the Athens Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation of the Athens University of Economics and Business. From 2014 to 2015, he was also a research member and a writer of the preliminary study and proposal submitted to the Stavros Niarchos’ Foundation on the creation of a new organization that would act as an NGO incubator. This successful proposal led to the creation of HIGGS, in which Aris is currently working as a Manager of the Accelerator Service Line, providing specialized trainings and customized consulting to small and medium size NGOs operating in Greece. Aris is also supporting the HIGGS website, and is a member of the external evaluations team of HIGGS.
Sophia Chaskari is Social Worker. She Graduated from the Department of Social Work of Patras Technological Educational Institute and holds a Master’s degree in Bilingual Special Education from the University of Western Macedonia. In 2010 and for five years she worked for NGOs related to mental health, domestic violence and the reintegration of long-term unemployed into the labor market. Since 2014 she has been working in the Ministry of Education, specifically in Special Education Schools. Her cooperation with NGOs, as well as her participation in the Thalis I-NGO Evaluation Program in Greece, brought her into contact with the needs, expectations and difficulties faced by the majority of NGOs.
Katerina Velliou has studied Law at the Democritus University of Thrace. She has attended seminars and workshops regarding NGO leadership, communications and fundraising strategy.
Since 2012 she has worked in 3 NGOs with different scopes: environment, social vulnerability and education. Her work consisted in supporting them in the areas of Administration, Marketing and Fundraising.
Since 2016 Katerina has been working as an Assistant Project Manager at HIGGS. She is responsible for the Social Media strategic development and management and supports the Incubator team by empowering and training the newly established NGOs on issues of operations management, business planning, strategy and fundraising. She, also, organizes educational events for NGOs and participates in the CSR Fundraising Team.
She conducted the research "Greek Non-Profit Organizations & Corporate Social Responsibility |CSR|", which was published in March 2018.
Thomas Kikis was born in Athens, in 1998 and he is a senior at the department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Peloponnese. He has been a member of a Research Group for the study of South-East Europe, in which he studied the Greek Foreign Policy. In addition, he has attended seminars relevant to Politics and Foreign Policy. He participates in simulations of the United Nations and other International Organizations. He is a research assistant at the program Thalis II.
Maria Tsoutsi is an undergraduate student at the Department of Political Science and International Relations in the University of Peloponnese. She speaks English and Norwegian. She has attended seminars and workshops about the structure and operation of NGOs, European Funding, topical issues of International Relations, High Strategy and Digital Marketing.
Stavros Pantazopoulos has studied history and archaeology at the University of Peloponnese, demography and cultural management at postgraduate level and social policy at a doctoral level. He has worked as an archaeologist at the Ministry of Culture, as a project manager at an NGO and as an associate in a Special Research Fund Account, at a greek University.
Scientific Committee
Asteris Huliaras. Professor of Comparative Politics and International Relations in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of the Peloponnese, Greece. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair on EU Relations with LDCs. His research agenda includes development cooperation, Greek civil society and NGOs. He is co-editor (with J. Clarke and D. A. Sotiropoulos) of the book Austerity and the Third Sector in Greece: Civil Society at the European Frontline (London 2015). He has coordinated the project "Thales: Evaluation of Greek NGOs". Personal webpage: https://uop-gr.academia.edu/AsterisHuliaras .
Sotiris Petropoulos was elected Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of the Peloponnese in June 2017. He received his PhD from the Department of Geography, Harokopio University of Athens (Greece) while he holds an MA in International Political Economy from Warwick University (UK). During 2008-2013 he has acted as Senior Consultant on International Donors Programs at Ernst & Young. In addition, he has organized and delivered capacity building trainings to more than 300 non-profits in Greece and the Balkans supporting them to increase their operational and organizational capacity. Between 2012-2015 he also acted as Project Manager and Key Researcher at the “Thales-Evaluation of Greek NGOs” project leading the evaluation procedure which included 158 CSOs. He currently acts as Director of HIGGS, the 1st Incubator and Accelerator for non-profits in Greece. He has published in various international academic journals as well as in edited volumes on issues related to the Greek CSO ecosystem. His research interests include civil society organizations, evaluation of programs and projects, social impact assessment, regionalism and global governance.
Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos (dasotirop@gmail.com, dsotirop@pspa.uoa.gr) is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Athens, Research Associate of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy Studies (ELIAMEP, Athens) and Research Associate of the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics (LSE). He has studied at the Law School of the University of Athens, the LSE (M.Sc. 1986) and Yale University (M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. 1991). In 2009-2010 Dr. Sotiropoulos was Visiting Fellow, Southeast European Studies (SEESOX), St. Antony’s College, Oxford and in fall 2016 a visiting fellow at the Sciences Po, Paris. He has also taught at the University of Crete and the Institute Juan March, Madrid, Spain. His publications include: The Peak of the Clientelist State, Athens: Potamos (in Greek); Is Southern Europe Doomed to Instability?, co-edited with Thanos Veremis, London: Frank Cass, 2002; The State and Democracy in the New Southern Europe, co-edited with Richard Gunther and P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; State and Reform in Contemporary Southern Europe, Athens: Potamos, 2007 (in Greek) and Greek Civil Society and the Economic Crisis, Athens: Potamos, 2017 (in Greek).
Nikolaos Tzifakis is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Peloponnese. His research interests inter alia include transnational policy networks, non-state actors (e.g. celebrities and NGOs), and the post-conflict reconstruction and EU accession of the Werstern Balkans. His recent publications include articles in peer-reviewed journals such as: Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Celebrity Studies, Conflict, Security & Development, Ethnopolitics, European Foreign Affairs Review, Global Society, International Journal, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, Problems of Post-Communism, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Southeastern Europe, and Voluntas. In 2008, he was awarded the Marcel Cadieux Distinguished Writing Award for his co-authored article with Professor Asteris Huliaras, published in International Journal.
Alexandra Tragaki, is Associate Professor in Demography Economics at the department of Geography, Harokopio University. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Athens (1992), Masters (1993) and PhD (1997) in Demography Economics from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. She has worked as a specialist on Social Security issues at the Foundation for the Economic and Industrial Research (1998-2000) and has been a member of the Research and Economic Analysis Unit of the Council of Economic Advisers (2000-2002). She has participated, as permanent member, in the Greek delegation to the Economic Policy Committee of the European Union, during the years 2000-2002. She is involved in committees of specialists and in a number of projects. Her field of expertise comprises the economic impact of demographic changes, economic policy issues with emphasis on Social security, migration, labour market developments and statistical analysis.