Research Projects & Consultancy
Quality assurance, EU projects,
and applied consultancy
Independent quality auditing of EU-funded higher-education projects, expert evaluation for the European Commission’s executive agencies (REA for Horizon Europe, EACEA for Erasmus+) and for Horizon Europe cascade-funding, EuroHPC training and Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship calls, registration on European accreditation and evaluation expert registers, membership of three pan-European COST research networks, leadership of a digital civic-participation platform, and ICT consultancy across the Western Balkans.
All of it is contracted as an individual independent expert, registered on the European Commission’s Funding & Tenders Portal — the one database from which Horizon Europe, Erasmus+ and the Digital Europe Programme all draw their evaluators. Where this expertise applies, below, maps each area to the programmes it suits and to the indexed work behind it.
The auditing work rests on registration as an ISO/IEC 27001:2022 ISMS Associate Auditor and Practitioner of the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI/IRCA, membership 6221555), ISO/IEC 27001 Lead Auditor and Lead Implementer training with BSI, and the PM² certifications in the European Commission’s own project-management methodology — the certificates are on file and viewable.
Expert Evaluation
Where this expertise applies
The Commission’s executive agencies draw their independent experts from one register, the Funding & Tenders Portal expert database, and match a profile to a call by its declared areas of expertise. What follows is that mapping, stated plainly: each area, the programmes where it applies, and the indexed work behind it. The list is deliberately short — at most two works per area, chosen for indexing and quartile rather than recency. The full research record is separate.
Trustworthy AI, synthetic media and AI governance
Horizon Europe Cluster 2 (democracy; cultural and creative content) · Cluster 3 (misuse of emerging technologies) · Digital Europe
Provenance, consent and transparency obligations for AI-generated content, and the institutional conditions that make a society more or less exposed to manipulation. Evidence: a systematic review of deep generative models and their governance in Systems (Scopus Q1 · Web of Science Q1), and AI and the Future of Democracy (Chapman & Hall/CRC, indexed in Scopus).
Cybersecurity and information security governance
Horizon Europe Cluster 3 · Digital Europe · EuroHPC · national research agencies
Threat intelligence, behavioural detection, and security as an organisational rather than purely technical problem. Evidence: registration as an ISO/IEC 27001:2022 ISMS Associate Auditor (CQI/IRCA), the edited volume AI-Enabled Threat Intelligence and Cyber Risk Assessment (CRC Press, Scopus), and a machine learning study of breach risk across higher-education institutions (IEEE, Scopus and Web of Science).
Applied machine learning and the evaluation of models
Any call with an artificial intelligence or data work package, in any cluster
Whether an evaluation design, its baselines, metrics and leakage controls actually support the claims made for a system — the question most often left unasked in a proposal. Evidence: a multi-architecture comparative evaluation with an out-of-distribution test in Information (Scopus Q1, Impact Factor 4.3), and an applied computer-vision study on identifying missing persons (Springer, Scopus).
Higher-education capacity building and curriculum reform
Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education (EACEA) · Erasmus+ cooperation partnerships · Horizon Europe Cluster 2 (social transformations)
Assessed as a rapporteur on the EACEA Erasmus+ CBHE 2026 call and, from the other side, as external auditor on three live CBHE consortia — so both what a credible capacity-building work plan looks like on paper and what becomes of one in delivery. Evidence on the research side: a Technology Acceptance Model study in which behavioural intention predicted actual course grades (Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, Scopus Q2 · SSCI/SCIE), and the edited volume Revolutionizing Curricula Through Computational Thinking, Logic, and Problem Solving (IGI Global, Scopus).
Sustainability, ESG and SDG compliance measurement
Horizon Europe Clusters 5 and 6 · circular-economy and cascade-funding calls · ESG-linked topics
How compliance claims are actually measured and verified, rather than asserted. Evidence: machine learning for ESG compliance measurement in software engineering projects (Systems, Scopus Q1 · Web of Science Q1), and regulatory volatility in digital supply chains (Sustainability, Scopus Q1, Impact Factor 4.1).
Work plans, budgets and implementation quality
The implementation criterion in every call · Erasmus+ work-plan and budget assessment · procurement-of-innovation topics
Project Management Professional, PRINCE2 Agile Practitioner, and the PM² Essentials and Basic certifications in the European Commission’s own project-management methodology, alongside published research on project failure prediction, procurement disclosure and project-manager decision-making in the International Journal of Information Technology and Project Management and the Journal of Modern Project Management.
Research ethics, data protection and human subjects
Ethics self-assessment screening in every Horizon Europe evaluation · data-intensive Erasmus+ projects
Admitted to the reserve list of the European Data Protection Board’s Support Pool of Experts for technical expertise in new technologies and information security — experts there work on a project basis, and he is not an EDPB employee and has not been offered a contract. Serves on the Human Subjects Review Committee of the American University in Bulgaria.
The Western Balkans, transition economies and sub-Saharan Africa
Erasmus+ CBHE, which is region-targeted · widening participation · international cooperation topics
Twenty years of appointments across Albania, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Somalia and the United Kingdom, with a field-research record to match. Evidence: measuring culture and collaboration in Albania (Cross Cultural Management, Emerald, Web of Science SSCI Q1 · ABDC/ERA), and focus-group research with agricultural extension workers during the food-security crisis in north-east Nigeria, which won the 2021 Emerald Literati Outstanding Paper Award.
Quality Assurance, Auditing & Evaluation
Independent oversight of EU-funded programmes
Expert Evaluator — Horizon Europe
European Research Executive Agency (REA), on behalf of the European Commission · Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking, 2026 call
Contracted by the European Research Executive Agency as an independent expert to evaluate research and innovation proposals submitted to a Horizon Europe call of the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking. The assignment was completed in October 2026.
- Assessed proposals individually against the Horizon Europe award criteria of excellence, impact, and quality and efficiency of implementation, and drafted individual evaluation reports.
- Took part remotely in the central consensus meetings that finalised the evaluation.
- Experts serve in a personal capacity; the proposals, their assessment and the identities of the other experts remain confidential.
Expert Evaluator and Rapporteur — RIVCircular Open Call
Fundación para el Conocimiento madri+d, Madrid · RIVCircular, Horizon Europe European Innovation Ecosystems (HORIZON-EIE-2023-CONNECT-03) · Grant Agreement No. 101161013
Appointed by the Fundación para el Conocimiento madri+d to carry out the scientific and technical evaluation of proposals submitted to the RIVCircular Open Call for Interregional Circular Economy Innovation Proposals, a cascade-funding call (financial support to third parties) run by the RIVCircular project consortium.
- Evaluating proposals remotely against the published award criteria, drafting evaluation summary reports, and taking part in the online consensus meeting.
- Also appointed rapporteur on the call, consolidating the independent assessments of the other evaluators into a single draft for the consensus meeting.
- Thematic scope spans interregional circular-economy innovation, including digital solutions for the circular economy.
External Independent Expert — EVITA Open Calls
Barcelona Supercomputing Center — Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), Coordinator · EVITA, EuroHPC Virtual Training Academy · EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL-EUROHPC-JU-2023-ACADEMY-02-01) · Grant Agreement No. 101196394
Appointed by the EVITA consortium, represented by its coordinator the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, as an external independent expert for the evaluation of course proposals submitted to the project’s open calls for modular training material in high-performance computing.
- Evaluating course proposals remotely as a Scientific Reviewer in the EVITA Submission Portal, against the published criteria, and taking part in remote consensus review where reviewers’ assessments diverge.
- Proposals submitted to the first open call were allocated in October 2026 and are under review; the appointment continues across the second call, from November 2026, and the third, from May 2027.
External Expert, Selection Committee — AgrifoodTECH (MSCA COFUND)
Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT), Coordinator · AgrifoodTECH, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions COFUND postdoctoral programme under Horizon Europe (HORIZON-MSCA-2023-COFUND-01) · Grant Agreement No. 101179088
Selected through the programme’s call for experts to serve as an external expert on Selection Committee 3 for the first call of AgrifoodTECH, which runs from January 2025 to August 2030 and recruits sixteen postdoctoral researchers in agri-food technology to the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, with international and intersectoral secondments to partner organisations.
- The Selection Committees evaluate the applications submitted to each call and select the postdoctoral researchers to be recruited.
Selected Expert (reserve list) — EDPB Support Pool of Experts
European Data Protection Board (EDPB), Brussels · Call for Expressions of Interest 2025-044 · Field of expertise A, “Technical expertise in new technologies and information security”
Admitted to the sub-list for field A of the EDPB Support Pool of Experts, having met the eligibility, exclusion, and selection criteria set out in the call, and may be invited to submit offers for or take part in Support Pool projects in that field.
- Field A covers technical expertise in new technologies and information security — the area in which the application was assessed and accepted.
- Experts on the pool work on a project basis: not an EDPB employee, and no contract has been offered or awarded to date.
Registered Expert (Assessor) — FIBAA
Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation (FIBAA), Bonn · Registered for Computer Science and Management, with country expertise for Albania and experience of distance and blended learning
Entered in the expert database of FIBAA, a full member of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) since 2002 and registered in the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) since 2009, from which the agency draws the assessors for its programme and institutional accreditation procedures.
- FIBAA works to the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) and is recognised as a quality assurance agency in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland, operating in more than thirty countries.
- Registration places the profile in the agency’s pool; the agency makes contact directly when a procedure matches the registered expertise. No procedure has been assigned to date.
Expert Evaluator and Rapporteur (expert database) — EIT Urban Mobility
EIT Urban Mobility, an initiative of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) · Call for Expression of Interest for Experts, Evaluators and Rapporteurs, August 2026
Included in the EIT Urban Mobility expert database for a period of thirty-six months following assessment of an expression of interest submitted under the August 2026 call for experts, evaluators and rapporteurs.
- Inclusion in the database does not constitute a commitment to award a contract; the agency makes contact in the context of a specific assignment.
Independent Expert, Cultural Heritage — EIT Culture & Creativity Pool of Experts 2026
EIT Culture & Creativity, Cologne — the Innovation Community of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) for the cultural and creative sectors and industries, co-funded by the European Union · 2026 Pool of Experts for evaluators and rapporteurs
Selected, following an expression of interest, for the EIT Culture & Creativity Pool of Experts 2026 as an independent expert in cultural heritage — the pool from which the Innovation Community draws the evaluators and rapporteurs for proposals submitted to its calls.
- Experts are matched to each call by expertise, with panels balanced across profiles such as gender and geography; assignments follow the close of a call and are made under a consultancy agreement that includes declarations of absence of conflict of interest and of confidentiality.
- Inclusion in the pool does not guarantee an assignment; none has been made to date. The selection banner issued by EIT Culture & Creativity is shown with the certificates.
Pool of Experts — INSIGHT (early research careers)
INSIGHT — Institutional Networks for Strengthening Innovation and Growth of Early Research Careers · Horizon Europe Coordination and Support Action (HORIZON-WIDERA-2024-ERA-02-03) · Grant Agreement No. 101217020 · Coordinated by 28DIGITAL (formerly EIT Digital); selection through the Bulgarian partner, the Regional Agency for Entrepreneurship and Innovations – Varna (RAPIV)
Selected for the pool of experts of INSIGHT, an eleven-partner Horizon Europe project running from September 2025 to August 2028, which builds interconnected talent ecosystems for attractive, inclusive and sustainable careers for early-stage researchers across academia, industry and the public sector, putting the new European Charter for Researchers into practice.
- Pool experts are invited to the project’s activities according to their expertise — workshops, policy dialogue, and the independent review and validation of its tools, training pathways, cooperation models and recommendations. The selection drew on experience of higher-education leadership, institutional evaluation, quality assurance and the assessment of European research and education projects.
- Inclusion in the pool is not an assignment; no activity has been undertaken to date. See the project record on CORDIS ↗.
Listed Expert — Higher-Education Accreditation, Montenegro
Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (HEQA), Podgorica, Montenegro · List of Experts, third-quarter 2026 update · Academic staff, technical and technological sciences
Included on the List of Experts from which the Agency appoints its expert panels for the accreditation of study programmes and the reaccreditation of higher-education institutions in Montenegro, following an application under the Agency’s public call.
- Listed among the academic-staff experts in the technical and technological sciences, under the Department of Computer Science, American University in Bulgaria — see the Agency’s published List of Experts ↗.
- The Agency, formerly the Agency for Control and Quality Assurance of Higher Education (ACQAHE; AKOKVO in Montenegrin), is the national quality-assurance body for higher education in Montenegro, an affiliate of ENQA and a full member of CEENQA.
Registered Expert — Research Council of Lithuania
Research Council of Lithuania (Lietuvos mokslo taryba, LMT), Vilnius · Expert Database (EDB)
Registered in the Expert Database of the Research Council of Lithuania, the national body that advises the Seimas and the Government on research policy, administers competitive research funding, and evaluates scientific activity in Lithuania. Registration followed an invitation from the administrator of the expert database.
- Experts of the Council evaluate research project proposals and reports, and the research activity of research and higher-education institutions, and prepare the conclusions on which its funding and assessment decisions rest.
- Registration in the database does not oblige the Council to invite an expert to perform expert tasks; no task has been assigned to date. See the Council’s description of expert activities ↗.
Registered Expert — Technology Agency of the Czech Republic
Technologická agentura České republiky (TA ČR), Prague · Registered as an Expert in SISTA, the Agency’s information system
Registered as an expert evaluator with the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, the national agency that funds and supports applied research, experimental development and innovation, with the registered fields of expertise drawn from the Czech CEP research classification.
- Experts evaluate project proposals submitted to the Agency’s calls, recording their evaluation reports in the Agency’s information system; proposals are matched to experts by field of expertise and professional experience, and training on each call’s process and criteria precedes any assignment.
- Registration is a precondition for assignment, not an assignment: no evaluation has been allocated to date.
External Project Quality Auditor — SacredTravels4Growth
LOGOS University College (Coordinator) · Project No. 101238053 · Higher Education and Sustainable Socioeconomic Growth through Religious Tourism (Strand 2)
Selected through competitive evaluation by the project’s Management, General Management, and Quality Management Committees as independent External Project Quality Auditor for an Erasmus+ CBHE (Strand 2) project delivered by a sixteen-partner consortium spanning Europe, India, and Africa.
- Assessing the quality and timeliness of activities and outputs — curriculum reform in religious and cultural tourism, training resources (a manual and five MOOCs), and enhanced laboratory infrastructure — against EU standards and the OECD evaluation criteria.
- Evaluating project relevance, effectiveness, impact, dissemination, and the sustainability of capacities built within partner HEIs, recommending corrective actions where required.
- Authoring mid-term and final quality audit reports with findings and recommendations for the project coordinator and Quality Management Committee.
External Quality Auditor — DiLanEdu-WB
LOGOS University College · Project No. 101179642 · Digital Transformation in Language Study and Education of the Western Balkans
Appointed as independent External Quality Auditor for a 36-month Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education project, with a consortium of ten partner institutions across Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Greece, and Germany.
- Conducted evidence-based audits of project deliverables, implementation, and compliance with the Grant Agreement and EACEA quality standards throughout the project lifecycle.
- Completed three formal audit reports to date, including in-person observation of transnational training events in Tirana, Banja Luka, Prishtina, and Podgorica.
- Applied ISO 19011:2018 auditing guidelines, ISO 9001:2015 quality management, the EACEA CBHE quality framework, and the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG, 2015).
External Quality Evaluator — Tech2Link
Project No. 101179816 · Bridging the Gap: Technology Transfer Hubs Connecting Western Balkans Universities, Business, and Society (Strand 1)
Appointed as independent External Quality Evaluator to assess project implementation against the EU evaluation criteria of relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability.
- Evaluating the quality of work-package activities and outputs, dissemination efforts, and the exploitation and sustainability of results, including the efficiency of budget execution.
- Authoring intermediate and final independent quality (monitoring) reports with actionable recommendations, culminating in the project’s final quality audit.
- Liaising with the project coordinator, Project Management Board, and Project Quality Board throughout the evaluation cycle.
Expert Evaluator — Erasmus+ CBHE
European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) · CBHE 2026 Call
Appointed as an Expert Evaluator for the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education programme, conducting independent evaluations of international higher-education cooperation proposals and participating in remote consensus panels.
- Applied the EACEA evaluation framework to assess the relevance, quality, and impact of proposed CBHE projects across the Western Balkans and beyond.
ISMS Associate Auditor — ISO/IEC 27001:2022
Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) / International Register of Certificated Auditors (IRCA) · Membership No. 6221555
Certified competence in auditing Information Security Management Systems in accordance with ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO 19011 auditing guidelines.
- Competencies in risk assessment, control selection (Annex A), compliance monitoring, audit planning and execution, and continual-improvement frameworks.
- Directly applicable to EU-funded project governance, data-protection compliance, and quality assurance in Erasmus+, Horizon Europe, and Digital Europe contexts.
EU & International Projects
Research leadership and expert roles
The Democracy Project (DemPro)
Center for Information, Democracy, and Citizenship (CIDC), American University in Bulgaria · Principal Investigator, with Klea Muka as Project Manager; supported through the CIDC by Dr. Julia Watkins, then President of AUBG
An applied technology and civic-engagement initiative rather than a conventional research project, whose principal output is the DemPro digital platform for civic participation among young people in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. Led as Principal Investigator from design through development, testing and dissemination.
- The platform was built as an interactive environment rather than a project website: civic-engagement communities, project collaboration spaces, discussion threads and templates, real-time messaging with file and image sharing, user profiles with role-based access, moderation, flagging and content management, search and discovery, and a deployed backend, database and supporting cloud infrastructure.
- Technical development was carried out through Cloud Tech House, with Toni Gashi — an AUBG alumnus and Computer Science major — working on the build, bringing an alumnus back into a faculty-led project.
- Overseeing product testing, research and platform refinement; integrating faculty and student participation in research, content creation and impact analysis; managing institutional stakeholder engagement; and conducting monitoring, evaluation and reporting, with structured progress reports and a final impact assessment.
- Presented and discussed at AUBG on 25 February 2025 — see the event page ↗ and the CIDC platform page ↗.
- Disseminated internationally: “The Democracy Project: DemPro — A Platform for Civic Engagement, by the People, for the People”, presented with Klea Muka at the 4th International Summer School of the Southeast Europe Academic Women’s Leadership Initiative, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tirana, 1 September 2025, in the session on digitalization in social work and social services and on civic engagement, social movements and democracy; and “DemPro: Rethinking Civic Engagement at the Crossroads of Culture, Education, and Technology” at the REACT 2025 Conference, Vienna, 20 October 2025.
Management Committee Member — COST Action CA23144 (ESIND)
COST Association, Brussels · “Europe’s Representations of India: Texts, Images, and Encounters” · National representative for Albania · Memorandum of Understanding COST 057/24
Nominated through the COST National Coordinator as Albania’s representative on the Management Committee of a pan-European research network running from October 2024 to October 2028, chaired by Prof. Martin Farek. COST — European Cooperation in Science and Technology — is funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe framework programme.
- Management Committee members govern the Action: they approve the annual work and budget plan, award the networking grants, oversee the deliverables, and represent the participating country in the network’s scientific direction.
- Also an approved member of all five Working Groups — European representations of India; Europe–India encounters; translations, annotations and database; scientific training and dissemination; and non-academic dissemination and dialogue — see the Action page ↗.
Working Group Member — COST Action CA22104 (BEiNG-WISE)
COST Association, Brussels · “Behavioral Next Generation in Wireless Networks for Cyber Security” · Working Groups 2 and 4 · Memorandum of Understanding COST 014/23
Approved onto the Working Groups of a cross-disciplinary network, running from September 2023 to September 2027, that places human behaviour at the centre of cyber-security design for next-generation wireless networks, drawing on cybersecurity, wireless communications, data science, sociology, psychology and law.
- Working Group 2, a cybercrime perspective in wireless networks: how offenders combine machine learning and emerging wireless technology to make attacks more effective and harder to detect.
- Working Group 4, human factors in wireless security: the user as both potential victim and potential offender, and what follows for responsible-by-design security — see the Action page ↗.
Working Group Member — COST Action CA22154 (DAEMON)
COST Association, Brussels · “Data-driven Applications towards the Engineering of functional Materials: an Open Network” · Working Group 5 · Memorandum of Understanding COST 064/23
Approved onto Working Group 5 of a network of more than two hundred researchers across forty countries, running from September 2023 to September 2027 and chaired by Dr Kevin Rossi of Delft University of Technology, which works to harmonise machine-learning methods for the design of functional materials.
- Working Group 5 covers training, dissemination, exploitation and outreach — the capacity-building side of the network, including training schools for early-career researchers and technology transfer to industrial stakeholders. See the Action page ↗.
Non-Key Expert — EU ICT Sector Support, Kosovo
EuropeAid/136756/DH/SER/XK · WEglobal · EU support for the competitiveness of Kosovo’s ICT sector
Delivered training under an EU-funded project managed by the EU Office in Kosovo.
- Senior NKE (Sep–Nov 2021): Python, Django, and Data Science training.
- Junior NKE (Mar–Dec 2021): Enterprise Java application development and Android development (Java & Kotlin).
IT & IS Research — WWW (W3) Research
St Thomas, US Virgin Islands, USA
Ongoing project management of an information-technology and information-systems research programme.
Adriatinn IPA Project
Cross-border Adriatic R&D ecosystem
Member of a sustainable, cross-border ecosystem fostering and boosting the R&D capacities and networking of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Industry & Consultancy
Advisory and consulting roles
Co-Founder & IT Consultant
PRM Consulting Shpk — co-founder and technology consultant; the company is now closed.
IT Consultant — Nebula
Technology consultancy, Tirana, Albania.
Associate Consultant — Protech
Associate consultant, Protech Albania.
IT Consultant — Inovacion
Technology consultancy, Inovacion Albania, Tirana.