Petra Ahrens is Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and conducts the research project ” Effects of Institutional Change on Participatory Democracy and the Involvement of Civil Society Organisations (DemocInChange). She obtained her Dr. phil. in Sociology from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, where she was also Assistant Professor at the Chair of Sociology of Work and Gender Relations, Department of Social Sciences. Her research focuses on European integration, gender equality policies, public policy and transnational social movements. She is co-editor of the German feminist journal Femina Politica. Her PhD thesis will be published in 2017 as book entitled Actors, Institutions and the Making of EU Gender Equality Programs: Roadmap to Nowhere?.