I am currently working on two impact projects, both funded by the University of Birmingham’s ESRC Impact Accelerator Account (IAA):

I have been awarded funding as part of the ERSC IAA Mentoring Fund, a scheme designed to support researchers in the social sciences with developing and planning effective impact and engagement activity.

A second project, ‘Protracted conflict and lessons for security in Europe and Beyond’, (with G. Kyris), is a knowledge exchange project between academics and non-academics on the issue of Russia’s war against Ukraine and associated challenges to European and global security. To facilitate this exchange, we are organising workshops and briefings with policymakers and writing a policy brief based on insights from our research on sovereignty, statehood and conflicts in the Caucasus, the Balkans, Cyprus and elsewhere. The policy brief focuses on the core themes of territorial and demographic control, the international dimensions of the conflict, and conflict management options. Through these thematic lenses, we consider the lessons of other conflicts and their relevance for understanding and responding to the Russia-Ukraine war. The policy brief is the basis for the workshops and the briefings and will be revised and updated in light of the feedback we receive before being disseminated more widely to policymaking and political audiences. A blog post with some of our thoughts can be found here.

More details to follow soon!