Clara Volintiru is a high-ranking official currently serving as Secretary of State within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) of Romania. Earlier, Clara was the regional director for the Black Sea region of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She previously was a senior expert for various international organizations such as the World Bank, the European Commission, the European Agency for … (Eurofound), the Committee of the Regions, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and others. She is also a professor at the Faculty of International Business and Economics (REI) at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE). Her research covered such areas as European financing mechanisms, European enlargement, Eastern European politics and electoral malpractices. Her recent publications appeared with Oxford University Press, Palgrave, Routledge, Springer, and in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of European Public Policy (Re-evaluating the East-West divide in the European Union), Competition & Change (Limitations of Coordinative Europeanisation in the Just Transition Mechanism in Romania), Energy Research & Social Science (Behavioural insights into energy consumption in times of crisis), Acta Politica (Political parties and clientelism in transition countries: evidence from Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), European Politics and Society (Anti-liberal ideas and institutional change in Central and Eastern Europe), European Political Science Review, Eastern European Politics, European Political Science, CESifo Economic Studies, or Research & Politics. Synthetic versions of her work are available in video abstracts or such online platforms as Forbes, EUROPP, IPI Global Observatory, Emerging Europe, Global Policy, Social Europe or Huffington Post.