Management team

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) is composed of a Director's Office and five units. The management team comprises the heads of all units and the Director.

 

Research & Data

Joanna Goodey, Head of Unit, Research & Data

Joanna Goodey, Head of Unit

Joanna Goodey's areas of expertise with respect to FRA’s work include: victims of crime; hate crime; trafficking in human beings; quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, including surveys.From the mid-1990s she held lectureships in criminology and criminal justice, first in the Law Faculty at the University of Sheffield and subsequently at the University of Leeds. She was a research fellow for two years at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and has been a consultant to the UN International Narcotics Control Board. She was also a regular study fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg. She studied criminology, as well as human geography, and is the author of the academic textbook Victims and Victimology: Research, Policy and Practice (2005), and co-editor of the book, together with A. Crawford, on Integrating a Victim Perspective within Criminal Justice: International Perspectives (2000). To date, she has published over thirty academic journal articles and book chapters.

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Technical Assistance & Capacity Building

Ann‐Charlotte Nygard, Head of Unit, Technical Assistance & Capacity Building

Ann‐Charlotte Nygård, Head of Unit

Ann-Charlotte Nygård oversees the Agency’s work of making FRA expertise, findings and opinions available to stakeholders through providing real-time practical assistance and support. Her areas of expertise with respect to FRA’s work are asylum, migration, borders and visas. She managed FRA’s multiannual project on EU information technology systems and the use of biometric data in the areas of borders, visas and asylum. She has also worked on fundamental rights aspects in the context of return and rights of migrants in an irregular situation. Before joining the Agency she managed project teams in the areas of capacity-building and research, as well as inter-governmental policy dialogues to strengthen migration governance at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). She has also worked at the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-HABITAT) in Nairobi, Kenya and at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She holds a master’s degree in international relations, with a major in public international law and a specialisation in human rights law.

Communications & Events

Nicole Romain, Head of Unit, Communications & Events

Nicole Romain, Head of Unit

Nicole Romain is Head of the Communications and Events unit at the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). She joined FRA as Scientific Editor in March 2010, and has built up and led the agency’s Editing and Production Sector since 2011. Prior to taking up her appointment at FRA, she worked as an author and editing consultant for Bertelsmann Publishing in Germany and Spain, and Eurofound, the EU Agency for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, in Dublin, Ireland. She has authored several academic journal articles and contributed to encyclopaedia volumes on health-relevant topics. From 1994 until 2000, she lectured at the German Sport University Cologne. She studied Sports Sciences at Hamburg and Montpellier Universities, and psychology and social sciences at Montpellier University. She holds a Masters in Sports Sciences and a postgraduate degree in Social Sciences from Montpellier University, France.

Institutional Cooperation & Networks

Andreas Accardo, Head of Unit, Institutional Cooperation & Networks

Andreas Accardo, Head of Unit

Andreas Accardo oversees the Agency’s cooperation with its institutional partners, including the EU institutions, Member State governments, human rights bodies, civil society and intergovernmental organisations. The Unit liaises with policy makers at the EU and national level to support the development of fundamental rights compliant legislation and policies. Andreas Accardo joined the Agency’s precursor organisation, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, in 2004. He then continued working for FRA where he led diverse projects, for example in the area of Roma integration, human rights at the local level and media diversity. From 2014 to 2018, he headed the Director's Office. Prior to joining FRA, he worked on institution-building programmes in former Yugoslavia with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). He coordinated technical assistance and administrative reform programmes for local governments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as capacity-building projects for the national parliaments of Serbia and Montenegro. He holds a master’s degree in political science from the German University of Münster and a postgraduate degree in peace and conflict studies. His areas of expertise include EU and international relations, political affairs, human rights and good governance.

Corporate Services

Constantinos Manolopoulos, Head of Corporate Services

Constantinos Manolopoulos, Head of Unit

Constantinos Manolopoulos graduated as an economist specialized in European politics and European studies. He started his career as an economist in the private sector followed by a period employed by the Greek government in different ministries (Ministry of Culture, Ministry of National Economy, Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and worked in Canada and Brussels (Permanent Representation). In 1996 he joined the European Commission (DG 1) dealing with trade defence mechanisms. In the summer of 1999, in the interests of the service, he participated in the task force in Kosovo contributing to the effort of the European Union to reconstruct the area as Head of the Economic and Agricultural Sector. He became the Head of Administration and acting Secretary General of the European Agency for Reconstruction in 2000, achieving the goal of maintaining very low administrative expenses in relation to the approximately 3 billion euros invested by the European Union in Kosovo, Serbia, FYROM and Montenegro. He was also the Head of Administration (2004) of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia and since 2007 he has been the Head of Corporate Services at FRA.

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