Tamar GAMKRELIDZE is an alumna of the PhD support programme EUCACIS (The EU, Central Asia and the Caucasus in the International System), co-organised by CIFE and IEP with financial support from the Volkswagen Foundation and the Erasmus+ Programme. 

Dr Gamkrelidze currently works at the European Neighbourhood Chair of the College of Europe in Natolin, where she began her role as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in February 2022. Since September 2023, she has combined her fellowship with the position of Operations Coordinator for the European Neighbourhood Chair.

Before joining the College of Europe in Natolin, she held the position of Projects Manager for Mountain Resorts Development (MRDC) at the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia between 2020-2022. During 2019-2022, Dr Gamkrelidze taught European Studies at Ilia State University, Georgia, where she also earned her doctoral degree in Political Science. In the period of 2017-2019, she was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Latvia in Riga and at the Institute for European Politics (IEP) in Berlin. Prior to that, Dr Gamkrelidze was a Research Fellow at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.

Dr Gamkrelidze studied Social Sciences at University of Latvia in Riga and Political Science at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. She holds master’s degree in European Studies from Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

As a alumna of several scholarship networks, including Academic Swiss Caucasus Net, Erasmus Mundus EUROEAST, Latvian State Research Fellowship, DAAD and Open Society Institute, Dr Gamkrelidze focuses her research on identity politics, EU external affairs, EU integration, and discourse theory. Her scholarly contributions have been published in journals such as Journal of State and Church, East European Politics, Security and Democracy, Demokratizatsiya, and Journal of Contemporary European Studies.

Selected Publications:

Articles in Peer Reviewed Journals:

 ‘Understanding EU’s securitization of the neighborhood: frame alignment and projection on partner countries’, European Politics and Society, Vol. 25, 2025: 1–26
 ‘When and how the ‘Neighbours’ matter: ‘Immediate’ opportunity structures in the Eastern neighbourhood and policy frame-alignment by the EU’, Contemporary Politics, Vol. 31 (2025)
 ‘Georgia's External Frontier on Russia Sedimented and Unmalleable: engagement politics and the impact of the three-tier warfare’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 31, No 2, 2023: 536-555 
 ‘COVID-19 in Georgia: State Emergency as Political Non-Law and Its Impact on Pluralism’, Democracy and Security, Vol. 18, No 1, 2022: 67-89
 ‘The Project of Europe: a Robust Attempt to Redefine Georgian Identity, East European Politics’, East European Politics, Vol. 35, No 3, 2019: 351-371
 ‘Hegemony of the European Project in Georgia: From Foreign Policy Initiative to the Logic of State Building and Development’, Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, Vol. 27, No 2, 2019: 163-185 
 ‘Agonism as a State Policy for Engagement of Church in the Project of Europe: the Case of Georgia’,  Journal of Church and State, Vol. 61, No 2, 2019: 262–281
 ‘The Changing Image of Russia in the European Project of Post-Soviet Georgia’, L'Europe en Formation, 2018: 26-36

Op-eds and Commentaries:

‘Formulating Proposals for a More Effective Engagement with Neighbourhood Regions’ ENGAGE Working Paper, No. 32 (2024) (with K. Wolczuk, A. Tyushka, and T. de Waal).
 ‘Mapping Changing Intra-EU and External Opportunity Structures and Their Impact on Past EU Neighbourhood Policies’ ENGAGE Working Paper, No. 26 (2023) (with K. Wolczuk, H. Kakko, A. Väisänen) 
 ‘Securitisation of the Neighbourhood: EU-Driven Frame Alignment and Projection on Southern and Eastern Neighbourhood Partner Countries’ ENGAGE Working Paper, No. 15 (2022) (with A Väisänen)