Elizabeth Gowing

Elizabeth Gowing was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, before training as a teacher and completing an MA at the Institute of Education, University of London. She worked both in primary education in inner London and in education policy before moving to Kosovo in 2006. There, together with Robert Wilton, she co-founded the charity The Ideas Partnership.

She is the author of five travel books, four of which focus on the Balkans. Her most recent book, written with Robert Wilton, is No Man's Lands: Eight Extraordinary Women in Balkan History. She has also translated from Albanian the biography of Yugoslavia’s longest-held political prisoner, Adem Demaçi.

As well as being a trustee of The Ideas Partnership UK, she serves as a board member of Faktoje, Albania’s fact-checking NGO. In 2016 she was awarded the Mother Teresa Medal by the President of Kosovo for her humanitarian work. In 2017 she was recognised by British Prime Minister Theresa May as a ‘Point of Light’ for her volunteering around the world. In 2018 she was granted Kosovan citizenship by presidential decree.

She lectures at the American University in Kosovo and runs training programmes on telling the story of creating positive change in the world. She is also a frequent contributor to BBC Radio 4 and an accredited lecturer for The Arts Society.