Ivan Vejvoda

Serbia

Ivan Vejvoda is senior researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs in Vienna. From 2017 to 2025, he was at the Vienna Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) where he was a permanent fellow and cofounder. He also served as its interim rector from 2021 to 2022.

Before joining the IWM, Vejvoda was senior vice president for programs at the German Marshall Fund (GMF) of the United States in Washington, DC. Prior to that, he spent seven years as executive director of GMF’s Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project dedicated to strengthening democratic institutions in Southeastern Europe.

Vejvoda came to GMF in 2003 after distinguished service in the Serbian government as a senior advisor on foreign policy and European integration to Prime Ministers Zoran Djindjic and Zoran Zivkovic. From 1998 to 2002, he served as executive director of the Belgrade-based Fund for an Open Society. During the mid-1990s, Vejvoda held various academic posts in the US and UK, including at Smith College, Macalester College, and the University of Sussex.

During the 1990s, Vejvoda was a key figure in the democratic opposition movement in Yugoslavia. He has published widely on subjects such as democracy, EU integration, transatlantic relations, the Balkans, and totalitarianism. Since 2020, he has been the chair of the board of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade.

Vejvoda has been awarded the French National Order of Merit in the rank of Officer and the Order of the Italian Star of Solidarity, second rank (Commendatore). He holds a diploma from the Institut d’études politiques de Paris and completed postgraduate studies in philosophy at Belgrade University.