Fortesa Asani is a Research Assistant at the Max van der Stoel Institute. She completed her bachelor’s studies at SEEU and holds an MSc in International, Social and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science as a Chevening Scholar for the 2022-23 cohort. In 2019 she was selected as part of the U.S. Department of States leadership program Community Solutions Program, where she received Executive and Professional Education from George Mason University and completed her internship at The Governance Lab ( based at the New York University).

Prior to joining MVDSI, she worked for several local and international non-governmental organisations like Democracy Lab, Women’s Forum Tetovo, National Youth Council of Macedonia, and Centre for Strategic Research and Documentation (FORUM).

Her research focuses on understanding the most pressing social issues like poverty, inequalities, and social protection and how social policies can address and tackle these challenges.