Lorenzo Vai is an Associate Fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), within the "EU, politics and institutions" research programme. His main research interests tackle the EU institution and policies, with a focus on the EU’s external action and Common Foreign and Security Policy. His studies have also covered the history of the European integration process. Lorenzo Vai is an Italian diplomat, who worked at the Policy Planning Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Previously, he was researcher at the IAI, at the Centre for Studies on Federalism (CSF) and Pan-European Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). He has taught at the Universities of Turin and Rome (Sapienza and Roma Tre), and he has authored publications and articles on European issues. He is also the co-author of the podcast “Diplomatic Stories”.

Eleonora Poli is aSSOCIATE fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), where she is working on democracy, institutions and economic governance in the EU and in the Western Balkans. Eleonora holds a PhD in International Political Economy from City University London. She has worked as consultant for a number of prominent international organisations and public institutions and she is author of "Antitrust Institutions and Policies in the Globalising Economy" as well as several book chapters, opinion pieces, articles and analysis on the EU political trends and economic policies