Team Members

Aitor Bonsoms,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Aitor Bonsoms is a Predoctoral FPU researcher in the framework of the research project “Visions and practices of geopolitics in the European Union and its neighbourhood” (VISIONS) coordinated by Dr. Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués. He is a PhD candidate in the program Politics, Policies and International Relations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His research fields of interest are discourse analysis, European foreign affairs (particularly regarding MENA region), critical security studies and post-structural approaches to social, political and policy studies. He holds a Bachelor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (UPF, UAM and UC3M) and a MA in Ideology and Discourse Analysis (University of Essex).

Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués,
inRESPONSE Principal Investigator

Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués is Associate Professor at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals and member of the Observatory of European Foreign Policy (Spain). She holds a PhD in International Relations from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain. Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués’ main area of research is the European Union’s foreign and security policy, with a special focus on relations between the EU and neighbouring countries to the east and south. A secondary research line is state-society relations in Eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa, and she has written extensively on the role of civil society, migration, minorities, gender, and security. She has also worked on analyzing United Nations politics from different angles such as, for example, UN group politics (Organization of Islamic Cooperation, EU and League of Arab States), General Assembly voting patterns, and issue-specific topics like the Palestinian Question, human rights, or gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping. Recent publications include an edited volume by Springer and articles in International Affairs, Political Geography, Security Dialogue, Cooperation and Conflict, Geopolitics, Democratization, International Peacekeeping, and Mediterranean Dialogue. 

Ana Juncos,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Ana Junco’s primary research interest lies in European foreign and security policy, with a particular focus on the development on the EU’s conflict prevention and crisis management capabilities and its role in conflict resolution. Her previous research project examined the EU’s intervention in the Western Balkans since the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation in 1991. This study looked into the coherence and effectiveness of EU foreign policy over time and assessed the EU’s contribution to post-conflict stabilisation and peacebuilding in Bosnia. In other work, she has examined EU security sector reform and the institutionalisation of EU foreign policy, in particular, in relation to the newly created European External Action Service. Her current research examines EU peacebuilding in the neighbourhood, including the shift towards resilience approaches at the EU level. 

Eugene Kondratov,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Eugene Kondratov is a PhD candidate in the program Politics, Policies and International Relations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, under the supervision of Dr. Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués. His research interests are at the intersection of disinformation, hybrid interference, geopolitics, and socio-political impacts. He holds a BA in Political Science from Fordham University and an MSc in Theory and History of International Relations from the London School of Economics. He was previously professor of history and international relations at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Guadalajara, Mexico and seminar leader of a Master’s program at IBEI.

Francesca Leso,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Francesca Leso is a PhD candidate in the program Politics, Policies and International Relations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), under the supervision of Dr. Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués. Her PhD dissertation explores the European Union’s relations with Eastern Europe in the wake of the 2022 war in Ukraine. Her research fields of interest are the European Union’s foreign policy towards its Eastern neighbourhood and critical geopolitics. She holds a MA in International Relations from the University of Bologna and a MA in International Security from the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (IBEI).

Henrique Monteiro,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Henrique Monteiro is a PhD candidate in the program of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, under the supervision of Dr. Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués. His Phd dissertation has as the main focus the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and how it is changing the European Security Architecture, with a special emphasis on the EU, NATO and the OSCE. His research interests are international relations, geopolitics and global balances of power. He holds an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Amsterdam, and a second MA in Philosophy from the same university. He has also undertaken a specialization in Politics and International Relations through a global exchange program to the University of New South Wales. Previously, Henrique has worked as a research assistant under Dr. Deborah Barros Leal Farias from the UNSW, in Sydney, to assist in the conception of a Oxford Handbook chapter in Environmental Sciences.

Hanna Ojanen,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Hanna Ojanen is an Associate Professor at the National Defense University and the University of Helsinki as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Tampere on a Horizon 2020 research project, ENGAGE (Envisioning a New Governance Architecture for a Global Europe). She has previously worked at the Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki as well as in Stockholm and has been Jean Monnet Professor at the University of Tampere. Ojanen has had several assignments as editor and editorial member of international journals on European issues, peace issues, political science and Nordic integration.

Adrià Rivera Escartin,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Adrià Rivera Escartin is Assistant Professor at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and Affiliated Faculty member at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). He holds a PhD in International Relations from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain, and a MA in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action from Sciences Po Paris, France. His first research area is comparative politics in the Maghreb, focusing on topics such as (de-)democratization processes and the political effects of energy transitions. Additionally, Adrià’s second line of research examines the societal and political reverberations of EU foreign policy in neighbouring countries. He is a member of the Observatory of European Foreign Policy (Spain) and has participated in several competitive research projects and networks funded by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Research and the European Commission. His work has been published in journals such as Democratization, Political Geography, Third World Quarterly, and the Journal of European Public Policy.

Fatimah Saadi,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Fatimah Saadi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, under the joint supervision of Dr. Tània Verge Mestre and Dr. Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués. She is a member of the Gender and Inequalities Research Group (GRETA), the Center for Gender Studies (CEdGE), and the Institutions and Political Actors Research Group. Her dissertation is focused on the gendered implications of power-sharing arrangements in sectarian post-conflict polities, with a view to shedding new light on the gendered micro-foundations of sectarian-based systems in the case of women’s political representation. In her Ph.D. research, she is designing and applying mixed methods to capture the experiences of women in political institutions with the aim of developing a theoretical framework to unpack the impact of sectarian politics on gender and women’s inclusion. She holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain), a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, Language, and Translation from Kuwait University (Kuwait), and a CELTA teaching certificate from the University of Cambridge.

Elena Simanschi,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Elena Simanschi is a PhD candidate in the program of  Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, under the supervision of Dr. Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués. She obtained a predoctoral contract (FI) from the Catalan Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR). Her Phd dissertation explores geopolitics of disinformation in the Eastern Neighbourhood. Her research fields are international relations, EU foreign policy, and geopolitics. She holds an MA in Finance from National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine), and an MA in International Relations, Security and Development from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Previously, Elena worked as research assistant at IBEI in the framework of the research project VISIONS, led by Dr. Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués.

Laura Sparascio,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Laura Sparascio holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from LUISS University and a Double Master’s Degree in International Relations from LUISS University and MGIMO University. Her research fields of interest are security studies, international security dynamics and research methodology. She previously worked as a trainee at the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome.

Federica Zardo,
inRESPONSE Researcher

Federica Zardo is a political scientist working at the intersection between International Relations and Public Policy, with an empirical focus on the EU´s external relations and the EU migration policy. She obtained a PhD in political science and international relations at the University of Turin with a thesis on EU-Tunisia relations which has been published in 2020 as a monograph by Palgrave Macmillan. From 2016 to 2021 she has been working as Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna, Centre for European Integration Research, and in March 2021 she joined the Danube University as senior researcher where she is working on the external dimension of the EU migration. Her specific research interests include EU decision-making in the field of migration, EU-third countries relations on migration, and migration policy instruments and their impacts.