Professor Jacqueline Hodgson, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick

Jackie is Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Professor of Law. She established the Criminal Justice Centre and the cross-faculty Centre for Operational Police Research, which she co-directs. She holds an LLB and PhD, is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and has researched and written in the area of UK, French, comparative and European criminal justice. Her research has attracted funding from the ESRC, Nuffield Foundation, British Academy, Leverhume Trust, AHRC, the European Commission and the Home Office.

Professor Elena Korosteleva, Director, Institute for Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick

Elena Korosteleva is Professor of Global Sustainable Development, and Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics, which she was awarded twice by the European Commission in recognition of her research and teaching excellence. Before joining IGSD in 2022, she was Professor of International Politics and Director of the Global Europe Centre (Professional Studies) at the University of Kent for ten years. Prior to that Elena was a Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Director of the Centre for European Studies at Aberystwyth University.

HE Dirk Schuebel, Ambassador and Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Belarus

His Excellency Dirk Schuebel, Ambassador of the European Union to Belarus, has served as the Head of the EU Delegation to Belarus since 2019. Before his current post, he served as the Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova and the Head of the Political, Press and Information Section of the EU Delegation to Ukraine.

In between those assignments, Ambassador Schuebel worked as the Head of Division for Russia and as the Head of Division for the bilateral relations with the Eastern Partnership countries in the European External Action Service. Before his EEAS commitments, Ambassador Schuebel served at the European Commission’s directorates-general dealing with transport and energy, enlargement and trade. He started his professional career at the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ambassador Schuebel holds a degree in Foreign Trade and International Commercial Relations.  

Martin Mühleck, Policy Officer, European Commission Support Group for Ukraine

Martin Mühleck is policy officer of the European Commission Support Group for Ukraine, where he is working on human rights, national minorities and overall coordination of the EU assistance to Ukraine. Before joining the European Commission he studied history at the Humboldt-University of Berlin, worked in Warsaw, Vilnius and Strasbourg for different international organisations. In the European Commission he also worked on cybersecurity, research & innovation and cultural heritage.

Andrius Kubilius, Member of the European Parliament and member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

Andrius Kubilius is a Lithuanian politician and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He served as Prime Minister of Lithuania from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. He was leader of the conservative political party Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats.

Professor Kataryna Wolczuk, Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, University of Birmingham

Kataryna Wolczuk is Professor of East European Politics at the Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies (CREES), the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research focuses on politics in Central and Eastern Europe, EU's relations with the post-Soviet states as well as on Russia and Eurasian integration. Her publications include: Eurasian Economic Integration: Law, Policy, and Politics, Edward Elgar, 2013 and Ukraine between the EU and Russia: the Integration Challenge, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (with R. Dragneva) and The Ukraine Conflict: Security, Identity and Politics in the Wider Europe, 2017 (co-edited with D. Averre). She is an Associate Fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House, London.

Professor Michael Bradshaw, Warwick Business School & Lead, Global Research Priority on Energy, University of Warwick

Michael Bradshaw is Professor of Global Energy, his research on the geopolitical economy of global energy has examined the role of foreign investment in Russia's oil and gas industry (with a focus on Sakhalin); global energy dilemmas and the interrelationship between energy security climate change and economic globalization; and the challenges to the UK's gas security. He is the academic lead for the University's Global Research Priority on Energy. He is the author of Global Energy Dilemmas (2014), co-editor of Global Energy: Issues, Potentials and Policy Implications (2015), and co-author of Energy and Society: A Critical Perspective (2018) and Natural Gas (2020, Polity Press).

Professor Tim G. Benton, University of Leeds & Research Director at Chatham House in Energy, Environment and Resources

Professor Tim G. Benton leads the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House. He joined Chatham House in 2016 as a distinguished visiting fellow, at which time he was also dean of strategic research initiatives at the University of Leeds.

From 2011-2016 he was the ‘champion’ of the UK’s Global Food Security programme which was a multi-agency partnership of the UK’s public bodies (government departments, devolved governments and research councils) with an interest in the challenges around food.

Dr Borys Dodonov, Head of the Centre for Energy and Climate Studies, Kyiv School of Economics Institute (KSE Institute)

Dr. Borys Dodonov is an energy economist with a fifteen years experience of policy consulting and twenty-one years experience in economic research. Borys Dodonov holds a position of a Head of Center for Energy and Climate Studies at Kyiv School of Economics Institute (KSE Institute) since June 2021. He also works on a position of Country Expert for Ukraine at International Energy Agency (IEA) for EU4Energy program since January 2017. Borys Dodonov possess more than seven year experience as a World Bank Energy Consultant. His main areas of specialisation are energy security, sustainable energy development and efficient energy markets design. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics degree at the University of Houston in May 2009.

Ahmad Humbatov, Head of the Energy & Sustainability Programme, Institute for Development & Diplomacy, ADA University

Ahmad Humbatov is Head of the Energy and Sustainable Development Program at the Institute for Development and Diplomacy (IDD) of ADA University. Prior to rejoining the ADA University in October 2019, Mr. Humbatov worked at the World Bank office in Singapore, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) office in New York, and British Embassy in Baku. He holds a BA degree in International Relations from St. Petersburg State University in Russia, MA degree in International Affairs from ADA University, and MPP degree with honors in Development Economics from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) of the National University of Singapore and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., United States.

Dr Rosie Robison, Associate Professor, Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University

Rosie is an Associate Professor at the Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, UK. She draws primarily on social science approaches (psychology, science & technology studies, psychosocial studies, human geography), also informed by her technical training in applied mathematics. She is co-lead of the €5m Horizon 2020 SHARED GREEN DEAL project (2022-2027) which seeks to better integrate social sciences and humanities (SSH) insights into the implementation of European climate targets. She has worked closely with the European Commission's energy strategy unit within DG RTD since 2017, having previously co-led the high impact €1m Energy-SHIFTS (2019-2021) and €2m SHAPE ENERGY (2017-2019) projects.

Dr Nikoleta Jones, Institute for Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick

Dr Nikoleta Jones is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick. Her expertise lies within the field of environmental policy and governance with a specific focus on controversial policy initiatives, such as making space for water due to climate change and designation of new protected areas. She uses mixed methods with a particular interest in behavioural predictive models incorporating spatial and temporal dimensions. Dr Jones has published over 60 papers and has been involved in the writing of successful research grants since 2008, which collectively have raised over £2 million in external research funding. The most recent is the project FIDELIO funded by the European Research Council (2019-2024, €1.5 million) exploring social impacts and public support for conservation policies in Europe.

Dr Oleg Nivievskyi, Assistant Professor, Kyiv School of Economics, Center for Food and Land Use research

Since February 2018, Oleg Nivievskyi has been coordinator of the UaFoodTrade project on the Ukrainian side, which is jointly conducted by IAMO and the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE). He holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics and Applied Statistics from the University of Göttingen (2010) and an M.A. in Economics from the Kyiv School of Economics/National University 'Kyiv-Mohyla Academy' (Ukraine, 2004). He is an economic policy advisor on the reform of the World Bank Group's investment climate project in Kiev and a vice-rector and assistant professor at Kyiv National Economic University.

Dr Martine J. Barons, Director of the Applied Statistics & Risk Unit, academic lead for University of Warwick Global Research Priority on Food

Dr Martine J Barons is Director of the Applied Statistics & Risk Unit and has been applying statistical developments to the problem of tackling household food security in high income countries for almost a decade. Martine works in partnership with local government in Warwickshire and Coventry and is a Monash-Warwick partnership awardee, working with Nutritionists in Melbourne on household food insecurity. Martine is also an academic lead for the Food Global Research Priority.

Lauren Young, Research Analyst, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

Lauren Young is a Research Analyst in the Organised Crime and Policing team at think tank, Royal United Service Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI). She leads RUSI’s Institute wide Climate Change and Security research programme, which addresses climate change as the backdrop to all national security, defence and foreign policy discourses. Her research expertise lies in the field of organised environmental crime. She holds an MSc in Conservation and International Wildlife Trade from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, and a BA (Hons) in History from University College London.

Professor Jon Coaffee, Politics and International Studies & Lead, Global Research Priority on Sustainable Cities, University of Warwick

Jon Coaffee is Professor in Urban Geography. His interdisciplinary research focuses upon the interplay of physical and socio-political aspects of urban resilience and national security and he has also published widely, especially on the impact of terrorism, climate change and other security concerns on the functioning of cities. During this research he has worked closely with a range of public, private and Third sector stakeholders to ensure his research is co-produced and has real world impact. Jon's work has been published in multiple disciplinary areas such as political science, geography, town planning, environmental science, sociology and civil engineering. Most notably he has published a series of monographs: The Routledge Handbook of International Resilience (2016), Futureproof: How to Build Resilience in an Uncertain World and Security (2019), Security, Resilience and Planning: Planning's role in countering terrorism (2020) and The War on Terror and the Normalisation of Urban Security (2021).

Dr Vlad Mykhnenko, Associate Professor of Sustainable Urban Development, St Peter’s College, University of Oxford

Vlad Mykhnenko is Associate Professor in Sustainable Urban Development and Fellow of St. Peter’s College, University of Oxford. Dr. Mykhnenko’s academic research is devoted to geographical political economy – a trans-disciplinary study of the variegated landscape of capitalism. His research has generated well over £7 million in external research funding, with £1.6 million as a Principal Investigator. In 2016-2018, he served as Co-Investigator on the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded PaCCS Innovation Awards on Conflict and International Development project Ukraine’s Hidden Tragedy: Understanding the Outcomes of Population Displacement from the Country’s War Torn Regions (2016-2018). Originally from the city of Donetsk, Vlad has published extensively on the political economy of post-communism, Ukraine’s geographical political economy, the Donbas, and causes and consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Professor Neo Loizides, University of Kent

Neophytos Loizides is Professor in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent. He has previously taught at Queen’s University Belfast and Princeton University and held fellowships at the University of Essex and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Professor Loizides is the author of The Politics of Majority Nationalism: Framing Peace, Stalemates, and Crises, Stanford Press (2015), Designing Peace: Cyprus and Institutional Innovations in Divided Societies, University of Pennsylvania Press (2016), and Mediating Power-Sharing, Routledge (2018 with Feargal Cochrane and Thibaud Bodson).

Professor Maria Koinova, Department for Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

Maria Koinova is a Professor in International Relations at the Politics and International Studies Department at the University of Warwick and an Associate Senior Fellow at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg in Germany. She successfully completed as Principal Investigator a large-scale European Research Council Starting Grant Project “Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty” (2012-2017). Koinova is currently on the governing board of the EU Jean Monnet network “Between Europe and Russia.”

Dr Denys Nizalov, Associate Professor in Agricultural Economics, De Montfort University

Denys Nizalov is a Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University, UK and a Senior Land Governance Adviser for Prindex Project (www.prindex.net) where he supports research and country engagement in the field of land tenure security. Before taking the current positions, Denys worked as a Program Director for "Supporting Transparent Land Governance in Ukraine", World Bank where he was involved into design and implementation of the land reform. Denys works in the field of Agricultural/ Rural/ Regional Development and Impact Evaluation for more than 15 years in countries such as Georgia, Ukraine, US, Colombia, India, Nigeria and Croatia. Denys completed a PhD program in Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University in 2006 and held professorship and administrative positions at the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine.

Currently, Denys is involved with supporting Ukrainian displaced families coming to the UK and rapid need assessment in the land and real estate sector in Ukraine.

Dr Irina Petrova, University College London

Irina Petrova is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES). Prior to joining SSEES, she worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the GCRF COMPASS project at the School of Politics and International Relations (University of Kent). She taught a range of courses on History and Politics of the European Union, Europe and Eurasia, International Relations and research methods at the University of Kent, KU Leuven and Vesalius College (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). Over the past decade, she contributed to several international research projects, including GCRF AGRE, Horizon-2020 UPTAKE project, Jean Monnet Networks C3EU, EUinDepth, ANTERO, NORTIA etc.

Professor Richard Youngs, Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick and Senior Fellow in the Democracy, Conflict and Governance Programme, Carnegie Europe

Dr Tatsiana Chulitskaya, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

Tatsiana is a senior researcher at the Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) (Lithuania). She got her PhD in social sciences from Vilnius University in 2014. She has been recently involved in several international research projects including: EU-STRAT project focused on Eastern Partnership (EaP) program analysis and in C.O.N.T.A.C.T. project focused on hate speech and hate crime. Her research interests are public policy analysis, civil society in non-democratic regimes, Belarusian studies and welfare policies of the post-Soviet states. She has a number of academic and research publications. From 2011 Tatsiana cooperates with the Belarusian informal educational project and think tank SYMPA within which she is in the position of an Academic Director.

Dr Anastasiia Kudlenko, Institute for Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick

Anastasiia Kudlenko specialises in societal resilience and security of Wider Europe, with the geographic focus on Eastern Neighbourhood countries (Ukraine and Belarus) and the Western Balkans. She has International Masters in Russian and Central Eastern European Studies from the University of Glasgow and Jagiellonian University in Krakow and holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from Canterbury Christ Church University. Anastasiia is interested in the study of security sector reform, peace-building, security governance and the EU as a security actor.