Research Team

Chiara De Franco

Principal Investigator, Director

Areas of expertise
Protection of civilians | EU Foreign and Security Policy | Constructivist and practice theoretical approaches to International Relations and International Political Communication

Chiara De Franco

Principal Investigator, Director

Areas of expertise
Protection of civilians | EU Foreign and Security Policy | Constructivist and practice theoretical approaches to International Relations and International Political Communication

Dr Chiara De Franco (MRes PhD European University Institute; PGCAP King’s College London) is Associate Professor in International Relations and Director of the Centre for War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Previously, she was research fellow at King’s College London, deputy director of two ERC-funded projects – the Foresight Project and the Impact Tracer Project – and coordinator of the Task Force for the Improvement of the EU’s Capabilities to Prevent Mass Atrocities. Her professional training includes a working experience at the UNDPKO, Situation Center, NYC Headquarters.
 
De Franco’s research – broadly conceived – builds on constructivist and practice theoretical approaches to International Relations and straddles the fields of International Political Communication, Conflict and Mass Atrocities Prevention, and EU Common Foreign and Security Policy. Apart from being PROTEX’s PI, she is currently working on two more projects, the one developing a new narrative approach to international practices and the other focusing on papal diplomacy.
 
De Franco has published on the EU and the Responsibility to Protect, the EU and conflict prevention, war termination, and European military doctrines. Her articles have appeared in international journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the International Studies Review, and Armed Forces and Society. She is the author of Media Power and the Transformation of War(Palgrave, 2012), co-author of Warning about War: Conflict, Persuasion, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2019), co-author of the international report on The EU and the Prevention of Mass Atrocities (2013), and co-editor of Forecasting, Warning and Responding to Transnational Risks (Palgrave, 2011).
 

She is a member of the executive board of the Nordic International Studies Association (NISA), an academic friend of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO), and a member of the network of the European Center for the Responsibility to Protect (ECR2P). She is also a member of the editorial board of Interdisciplinary Political Studies (IdPS) and of the Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies (SJMS).

Protex Research Focus
Within the Protex project, De Franco focuses on the EU’s practices of protection of civilians and EU-AU and EU-UN partnerships in the field of human security. She is the PhD supervisor of Sofie Rose.

Linnea Gelot

Co-Investigator

Areas of expertise
Somalia | Ethiopia | Sudan | The African Union (AU) | Peace operations | Conflict management in Africa | Protection of civilians

Linnea Gelot

Co-Investigator

Areas of expertise
Somalia | Ethiopia | Sudan | The African Union (AU) | Peace operations | Conflict management in Africa | Protection of civilians

Dr Linnéa Gelot is Senior Researcher at the Folke Bernadotte Academy, Sweden, and an Associate Professor in Peace and Development Studies at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University. Her research has focused on peace operations, with a specialization in African-led peace operations and their protection of civilians; global institutions, especially the legitimacy of African organizations and the African Union–United Nations peace and security relationship; and militarism. Her research project ‘African Union Waging Peace’ has employed the concepts of militarization and security practice theory to study militarizing institutional discourses and practices within African peace and security institutions.

Gelot is the author of Legitimacy, peace operations and global-regional security: The African Union-United Nations partnership in Darfur (Routledge, 2012) and numerous articles appeared on journals such as Security Dialogue, Conflict Security and Development, Contemporary Security Policy, and the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.

Protex Research Focus
Within the Protex project, Gelot focuses on the AU’s practices of protection of civilians and AU-EU and AU-UN partnerships in the field of human security.

Cristina Stefan

Co-Investigator

Areas of expertise
Responsibility to Protect R2P |
International Relations Theory | Constructivism and Norm Diffusion |
Peace and Conflict Studies | International Justice | Global Governance |
United Nations | Human Protection

Cristina Stefan

Co-Investigator

Areas of expertise
Responsibility to Protect R2P | International Relations Theory | Constructivism and Norm Diffusion | Peace and Conflict Studies | International Justice | Global Governance | United Nations | Human Protection

Dr Cristina G. Stefan is Associate Professor of International Relations in the School of Politics and International Studies, at the University of Leeds in the UK. After receiving her PhD from Western University in Canada in 2007, Cristina undertook research and teaching appointments in Canada and the United States, at the University of Toronto, Western University, and the City University of New York. She was awarded several research grants, the latest including a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (PI) and the Women of Achievement Award from the University of Leeds.

Cristina is Co-Founder of the European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (ECR2P), and the Centre’s Co-Director. She also launched a global network of women academics, researchers, experienced diplomats, United Nations and European Union officials, seasoned policy-makers and practitioners, civil society and charity directors, working in the fields of international peace, security and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) across the globe. This global network of experts is entitled Women Network on the Responsibility to Protect, Peace and Security. Cristina is Associate Editor of the European Journal of International Security.

Cristina published a monograph on Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (Routledge, 2011) and numerous chapters in edited volumes (some published under former surname, Badescu). Her articles appeared in journals such as: Global Governance, International Studies Perspectives, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, Canadian Yearbook of Human Rights, International Criminal Law Review, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Journal of Common Market Studies, European Journal of International Security, and Security Dialogue.

Protex Research Focus
Within the Protex project, Stefan focuses on the UN’s practices of protection of civilians and UN-EU and UN-AU partnerships in the field of human security.

Sofie Rose

PhD Candidate

Areas of expertise
Gender issues in international conflicts |
Feminist approaches to International Relations | Responsibility to
Protect R2P | International Justice | United Nations

Sofie Rose

PhD Candidate

Areas of expertise
Gender issues in international conflicts | Feminist approaches to International Relations | Responsibility to Protect R2P | International Justice | United Nations

Sofie Rose is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at University of Southern Denmark. As part of the PROTEX team her project is focused on understanding how gender impacts the way in which protection of civilians is practiced and perceived by the European Union. The project examines the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy missions in Mali and the Central African Republic. By looking at a broad range of protection practices from the mission level to the decision-making processes, she is interested in examining how gendered logics informs in the way in which security is defined and ultimately how this affects the protection delivered. Chiara De Franco is her principal PhD supervisor and Nina Wilen her second supervisor.

Sofie holds a master’s degree in International Security and Law from the University of Southern Denmark and a bachelor’s degree in History and Philosophy from Aarhus University. In her research she has explored issues such as mass atrocity crimes prevention, peace and reconciliation processes, victim stigmatization, feminist security studies, gender crimes, international criminal law and conflict-related sexual violence. She has previously lived in Myanmar where she interned for an NGO called Nonviolent Peaceforce.