Academic Director
The European Peace and Security Studies Programme was founded and devised by Prof. Dr. Joachim Koops, who is also Assistant Professor of Political Science at Vesalius College and Senior Associate Researcher at the Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
Prof. Dr. Koops' research interests include the European Union as an International Actor, Military Crisis Management, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding as well as inter-organizational approaches to global governance, peace and security issues (with particular emphasis on the interactions between the EU, NATO, United Nations and African Union). He holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford (UK), an MSc in European Politics, Economics and Law from the University of Turku (Finland), the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Kiel (Germany).
Recent Publications:
- The European Union as an Integrative Power: Assessing the EU's Effective Multilateralism towards NATO and the United Nations, Brussels: VUBPress, forthcoming.
- 'Effective Multilateralism in Peacekeeping, Capacity-Building and Crisis Management: The Challenge of Inter-organizational Cooperation', Focus Papers No. 1/2010, available here.
- Unstrategic Partners: NATO's Relations with the European Union, in Werner Kremp, Berthold Meyer, Wolfgang Tönnesmann (eds.) Entangling Alliance. 60 Jahre NATO. Geschichte - Gegenwart - Zukunft, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2010
- “The European Union and NATO: Shrewd Inter-organizationalism in the Making?” in Knud Erik Jørgensen (ed.) (2009), The European Union and International Organizations, London: Routledge (with J. Varwick)
- Military Crisis Management: The Challenge of Inter-organizationalism, Studia Diplomatica, Special Issue, Vol. 62, No. 3, October 2009, Brussels: Egmont Institute – Royal Institute for International Relations.
For further information on the EPSS, please contact the Academic Director at jkoops@vub.ac.be