Kinga Szálkai, PhD is an associate professor at Budapest Metropolitan University, Hungary. Previously, she worked at Eötvös Loránd University as a senior lecturer. She also held various research positions, e.g. at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, at the Antall József Knowledge Centre, at Central European University, and is a long-time member of the Corvinus Society for Foreign Affairs and Culture. She earned her PhD degree in International Relations and Security Studies from Corvinus University of Budapest in 2017. Her main research area is water as a security challenge in Central Asia. Her current research focuses on large dams as tools of identity construction in the Soviet Union and in the post-Soviet region; and theories and practice of water security. She has publications in leading Hungarian and international journals. Máté Szalai, PhD is currently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Cofund Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University, Italy. He obtained his doctoral degree at Corvinus University of Budapest in 2019, where he also worked as an assistant lecturer, a senior lecturer, and later as an associate professor. Besides academic teaching, he worked as a researcher and the coordinator of the Middle East Research Program at the Hungarian Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade between 2015 and 2022. His main fields of research include the international relations of the Gulf region and the foreign and security policy of small states. In 2021, he was a visiting research scholar at The Harriman Institute of Columbia University in the City of New York. Besides numerous journal articles, he is the author of the book entitled The foreign and security policy of smaller Gulf states – Size, power, and regime security in the Middle East published by Routledge in 2021. His current research focuses on the influence-building activities of small Gulf states in the context of the changing global order.