Dr. Tena Prelec is an Assistant Professor in Politics and IR (tenure-track) at the University of Rijeka’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. Among her main research focuses are the transnational linkages in corruption studies, the political economy of transition, and the intersection of illicit finance and geopolitics. Before joining UniRi, Tena has held positions at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and earned her PhD from the University of Sussex. She is Team Coordinator and Work Package leader of the Horizon Europe project GEO-POWER-EU, which looks at EU enlargement in a shifting geopolitical context, and Principal Investigator of the GI-ACE project Lawyers: Gatekeepers, Enablers or Technicians?.

Tena is also a Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and a Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Corruption (CSC), University of Sussex. A member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group and a Marshall Memorial Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, she has published widely in both academic and policy outlets. She is co-author of Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Postcommunist Elites, and the Enabling of Corruption (OUP, 2025), which has been listed among the best books of the year by Foreign Affairs. She is fluent in Croatian, Italian, English and Russian, has a good knowledge of French and German, and a working knowledge of other European languages.