Jakob Pegels is a doctoral candidate at Freie Universität’s Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science as part of the ReSpend project. He graduated from the Hertie School with a Master of Public Policy, specialising in policy analysis and the EU. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Economics from Bayreuth University. Before joining FU, Jakob was a trainee at the EU’s Directorate-General for Budget, working closely on topics related to spending governance. After an exchange semester at Sciences Po Paris, he also worked on EU Enlargement and blended finance as a Research Assistant to Matthias Thiemann, Professor for European Public Policy at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics. His professional experience furthermore includes internships at Germany’s promotional bank KfW, the International Labour Organization and a strategic communication consultancy in Berlin.