Joan Hoey is the Regional Director for Europe in Economist Intelligence’s Country Analysis division. She is an expert on European political economy, with a special interest in democracy, governance, political risk, global geopolitics and east European post-communist transition. Joan is the Editor of EIU's flagship annual Democracy Index, recognised by governments, international organisations, corporates and academia as a leading measure of global democracy. Before joining the Europe team at The Economist Group in 1995, Joan worked as a journalist covering the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Serge Stroobants is the Director of Europe and the MENA region and the Global Director for Security, Defence and Intelligence at the Institute for Economics and Peace. His academic specialization is in political sciences, international relations, security and defence, global risk analysis, foresight, and crisis management. He is a visiting Professor at the Riga graduate School of Law, the Trocadero Forum Institute in Paris and the Brussels School of Governance. He is a senior fellow at the Irish College of the KU Leuven and a senior associate at the European Institute for Asian Studies. He is an alumnus of the International Visitors Leadership Program of the US State Department.