Bledar Feta is an International Relations Specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the public policy and international affairs industry. He has extended experience in working with inter-governmental and civil society organizations, governments, political personalities, diplomatic missions, advocacy groups, business leaders, and state and international institutions. In the course of his career, he has been engaged in different projects, many of them EU and UN-funded, exercising an important role in the field of policy-oriented research, government advice, advocacy, awareness, campaign planning, stakeholder engagement, and policy development.

At ELIAMEP’s South-East Europe Program, Bledar has the portfolio of research into the Albanian inhabited areas of the Western Balkans. He monitors, analyzes, and evaluates the domestic developments in Albanian, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and South Serbia, investigating the Albanian factor in the region and assessing Western Balkans’ European Union integration process.

A considerable part of his job is dedicated to violent extremism and radicalization. He has extensive experience in analyzing online extremist searches in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia and a deep understanding of the online and offline recruitment systems of ethnic Albanians by the Islamic State. Bledar is skilled in the design and the implementation of creative campaigns and strategies that aims to fight extremism, disinformation, and manipulation by reaching different global audiences. He has also been involved in a number of community-based projects in the field of migration and human rights protection.

Bledar is also a strong consulting professional providing consultancy services as a subject-matter expert for different organizations, global analysis and advisory firms, and private companies, among them: the Moonshot CVE – Countering Violent Extremism (October 2019 – March 2021), the University of Cambridge – DIGIWHIST Project (2015), Oxford Analytica (2013-2015), the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) office in Kosovo (2012), and the Greek Ministry of Labor, Social Security and Welfare (2010).

Bledar Feta holds a Master of Arts (M.A) in Political Science from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where his thesis observed the security, political and economic challenges and prospects of Western Balkans’ European Integration Process. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A) in International and European Studies from the University of Piraeus where he graduated with a first-class honors degree as the first departments’ graduate among the 107 graduating students in 2009.

He is also a holder of training certificates on diplomacy and collective decision making, the geopolitics of Europe, foreign and security policy, digital resilience, network mapping and data visualization, defense measures about disinformation, as well as on social media and digital platforms investigation. Bledar is the author of a number of policy briefs, research papers, reports, and analyses for top Western European and Balkan media such as EurActive, BalkanInsight, TransConflict, Tirana Times, Tirana Observatory, and Ta Nea Newspaper.