ECIT Board Members

Tony Venables is a Cambridge graduate who began his career as a European civil servant at the Council of Europe and later within the EU. His involvement in the staff trade union showed him that there were alternatives to a purely administrative path. He became Director of BEUC, leading high‑profile consumer campaigns including European boycotts, legislative advocacy and litigation. He later founded ECAS, which supported initiatives that grew into Culture Action Europe and the European Public Health Alliance. ECAS also pioneered hotlines on free‑movement barriers, inspiring Europe Direct and leading to its long‑term coordination of Your Europe Advice. Tony believes that activism has allowed him to bring more European laws and initiatives to life than remaining an EU official, and he hopes to pass this experience on to younger generations.

Suzana Carp is the co-founder of the Foundation for European Citizens Rights, Involvement and Trust (ECIT Foundation). In this capacity, she has supported the Voters without Borders ECI which has won the Charlemagne Award for Youth in 2022 (for Belgium). Previously, in her role as Chair of New Europeans, she received on behalf of the members of the organisation the Schwarzkopf Award for Ideas that change Europe (2019). Outside of her roles in the democracy space, Suzana has been actively championing European climate policies, having held multiple roles over the past decade in pan-European organisations, leaving a lasting impact on the European Climate Law, the European carbon market and the European Green Industrial Plan. 

EU project management specialist with extensive experience working alongside European agencies and local stakeholders. Manager of European Networks of Towns, coordinating over 100 public bodies across Europe. Proven track record in programme evaluation for REA and EACEA, monitoring, and reporting for Horizon 2020, Erasmus+, Europe for Citizens, and CERV, with a strong focus on translating EU policy frameworks into actionable outcomes at the local level. She holds a doctorate in political science with a specialisation in European citizenship. A women’s rights activist, co-founder of the International Council of Polish Womxn (Poland) and connection:berlin e.V. (Germany).

Alvaro Oleart is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science and the Institute for European Studies of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is the author of the books “Framing TTIP in the European Public Spheres: Towards an Empowering Dissensus for EU Integration” (Palgrave, 2021) and “Democracy Without Politics in EU Citizen Participation: From European Demoi to Decolonial Multitude” (Palgrave, 2023).

Julian Culp is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Fellow of the Center for Critical Democracy Studies at The American University of Paris. Previously, he was a lecturer in philosophy and political theory at the Goethe University of Frankfurt, where he received his Habilitation and PhD in philosophy. Culp is the author of Global Justice and Development (Palgrave, 2014) and Democratic Education in a Globalized World (Routledge, 2019), as well as co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Democratic Education (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and the journal Analyse & Kritik – Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory (De Gruyter).

Nora Siklodi is Associate Professor in Politics at the University of Portsmouth (UK). 

Her research approaches questions of citizenship and belonging from a political studies perspective, analysing how youth, migration and intersectional dynamics (including gender and race/ethnicity) shape political experiences in Europe and beyond. Her book The Politics of Mobile Citizenship in Europe (Palgrave) explores how EU free movement shapes young people’s perceptions of citizenship, identity, and political participation.