UCL – FCDO Roundtable convened on Central and Eastern Europe

On 23 April 2024 UCL European Institute convened experts from across the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Political Science and Economics to exchange perspectives with FCDO officials based in the European Strategy and Expertise Department on domestic politics across Central and Eastern Europe, attitudes to and influence in the European Union, and the implications of the war in Ukraine.

Discussion touched on the nature of and drivers for populist politics across the region, democratic backsliding, and diverging attitudes to security and defence cooperation, and support for Ukraine, following Putin’s invasion.

 As noted by Professor Richard Mole, Director of SSEES, in his opening remarks the range of contexts across the region highlights the critical importance of deep country and regional expertise, and the value of sustained academic-policy engagement in this field.

 UCL academic contributors were:

• Prof. Richard Mole, Professor in Political Sociology & Director, UCL SSEES
• Dr Michal Ovadek, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in EU Institutions, Politics and Policy, UCL Department of Political Science
• Dr Sean Hanley, Associate Professor in Comparative Central and East European Politics, UCL SSEES
• Prof. Alena Ledeneva, Professor of Politics and Society, UCL SSEES
• Prof. Andrew Wilson, Professor of Ukrainian Studies, UCL SSEES
• Dr Pawel Bukowski, Lecturer in Economics, UCL SSEES
• Dr Lukasz Rachel, Assistant Professor in Economics, UCL Department of Economics
• Prof. Sherrill Stroschein, Reader in Politics, UCL Department of Political Science 

Lucy Shackleton and Dr Ben Noble co-led a Commission on Policy Engagement by Area Experts in 2023, to identify ways to better identify and leverage UCL’s area expertise to inform policy debates.

Image: A rusted tank sitting in a field near Bucha, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, by Mykhailo Volkov on Unsplash.