IGSD News

The Horizon Europe SHAPEDEM project concludes with its final review conference on 20 January 2026, with the European Commission. The consortium, comprising 12 partners from Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Lebanon, Poland, Spain, Ukraine, and the UK, represented by the University of Warwick, presented its work to the panel of evaluators. The project focused on assessing the understanding and practices of democracy in the eastern and southern neighbourhoods, as well as the EU support for democracy as a composite stakeholder. Warwick was responsible for undertaking work - fieldwork and analysis - in the six countries in the eastern neighbourhood (WP2), drawing on the results of online surveys, focus groups, interviews, and roundtables. WP2 specific outputs included 8 published, submited and projected publications.

It has been three challenging years of research, including overcoming the obstacles of BREXIT, Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine, Belarus civil war, Gaza war, and increasing geopolitical complexity around the globe. Yet, the project went beyond all expectations and has achieved a lot, including critiquing and offering specific recommendations to the EU on how best to support democracy efforts in around the globe. Team Warwick – including Anastasiia Kudlenko and Aijan Sharshenova – is grateful to the EU, UKRI and especially to the consortium and its leadership – for the support, and inspiration. Thank you!

Professor Korosteleva was invited to speak at the LSE roundtable, organised by Prof. Federica Bicchi, on the future of Europe and European Foreign Policy, together Christopher Hill (LSE) and Jan Orbie (Ghent). They addressed the issues of the US's new security strategy, Russia's war in Ukraine, and Europe's place in the changing global order architecture, following the crisis of the Liberal International Order. The discussion also involved PhD and Master's students, from LSE and King's.

Professor Korosteleva was invited to private conversations with John Smith Trust Fellows in Parliament, followed by a roundtable to discuss the future of Belarus and the UK Strategy, organised conjointly by Belarus APPG and JST Foundation. It involved members of parliament, government, various think-tanks, NGOs and 10 JST fellows from Belarus, as future leaders of the programme.

Professor Korosteleva was invited to give a keynote at the Lithuanian Annual Conference on Resilience, at Vilnius University, School of International Relations on 3-5 December 2025. She based her presentation on her newly published book 'Complexity and Community in IR: Nurturing Resilience in Central Eurasia', in which she highlighted the role of communities in making alternative futures possible. Professor Korosteleva was also invited to contribute to a workshop with ECRs, along with Prof. Anders Wivel, Copenhagen University. For more info see here.

On 26 November 2025 I attended the final conference 'Turning Point: Realising a sustainable security architecture for Europe', organised by Dr Gry Thomasen (PI) from BASIC | The British American Security Information Council in Vienna. The project explored the need to rethink the security architecture in light of the geopolitical challenges, the crisis of the rule-based order, and climate change. I was honoured to be on the International Advisory Board for this project, to share my thinking about the multi-order world, and to contribute feedback to the final report.

The conference also touched upon the future of transatlantic security, and the implications of Putin's war Ukraine for the International Liberal Order. The final discussion brought many experts, and senior Foreign Ministry and MOD officials from the UK, Denmark, Ukraine, Holland, Lithuania, Latvia and Norway. I am thankful to Gry Thomasen for this opportunity and look forward to continuing our work in the direction of comprehensive security and resilience! For reference, please check out my new book on Resilience here.