National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Research Centre for Economic Policy, Governance and Development

The Research Centre for Economic Policy, Governance and Development (EKOPDA) was founded on the initiative of the former Vice Dean of the University, Professor Napoleon Maravegias. It operates under the auspices of the Section of International and European Studies of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration. Its aim is to promote research on EU studies, EU-Greece political and economic relations, European and international economic governance, as well as development studies in the context of EU and its broader neighbourhood. It is composed of a team of academic and researchers with a strong background in European Studies, Economics and Political Science.

Particularly, EKOPDA implements research and educational programmes; organizes scientific lectures, conferences, workshops and other relevant scientific events; provides support to PhD candidates; collaborates with Greek and foreign academic institutions, research centres and state institutions and prepares and publishes scientific books and monographs. In addition, it publishes “Region and Periphery”, an open access peer review journal, available through the online platform of the National Documentation Centre, a public repository.

The Director of the Centre, Professor Napoleon Maravegias, has a great experience in implementing projects, as Academic Coordinator or staff member of a great number of European programmes. Its Deputy Director, Assistant Professor Dimitris Katsikas, also has extensive experience in supervising, coordinating and participating as researcher in national and European research programmes.

EKOPDA is part of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). The Department of Political Science and Public Administration is one of the most celebrated Political Science departments in the entire Southeast-European region; many renown academics have served at the department -some of whom also went on to assume major EU and other European institutional roles (e.g. Prof. Diamantouros, EU’s first Ombudsman and Prof. Rozakis, Vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights). The NKUA, is the first University of Greece (founded in 1837), but also of the Balkan peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean region. The NKUA is the country’s premier university with a strong international research reputation and presence; the recent Webometrics survey places NKUA at the 11th place in Europe and 74th in the world, based on scientific citations. As of the academic year 2017-18 the NKUA has 655 Erasmus Agreements with 336 universities from 31 European countries and is involved in 60 scientific cooperation agreements with universities and research centres worldwide.

All research grants and other European programmes of the NKUA and its laboratories or Centres are managed by the Special Account for Research Grants (SARG). SARG applies a Quality Management System, according to ISO 9001:2008 regarding all its activities.

For more information please visit the website of EKOPDA: https://ekopda.pspa.uoa.gr/