Expert Profile

Prof. Dr. Elena Atanassova is an Associate Fellow within the Global Fellowship Initiative of the GCSP. Prof. Dr. Elena Atanassova-Cornelis is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations of East Asia at the Department of Politics, University of Antwerp, and Professeur at the School of Political and Social Sciences, Université Catholique de Louvain, both in Belgium. She is also a Visiting Professor at the Brussels School of International Studies, the University of Kent at Brussels.
Previously Elena Atanassova-Cornelis was a Visiting Professor at Ghent University, Belgium and the Lille Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Lille), France. She was also a Senior Associate Analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris, and a holder of the Taiwan Fellowship of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China on Taiwan. She was a recipient of the Monbusho Scholarship of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and pursued graduate studies at Sophia University in Tokyo. She holds a PhD in Japanese Studies from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Her teaching and research interests include international relations in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. She focuses, in particular, on Japanese foreign and security policy; alliances, alignments and major power relations; identity politics and regional security in Northeast Asia; geopolitics of the Taiwan Strain and the Korean Peninsula, as well as ASEAN-led regional multilateralism and EU-Asia relations. Elena Atanassova-Cornelis has authored more than 40 academic articles, book chapters, briefing papers and policy reports, and is regularly invited to deliver lectures and presentations at international conferences, high-level expert meetings and various universities in both Europe and Asia. She has extensive experience in professional and executive training on Asia-related topics in programmes designed for European, East Asian and other countries’ government and military officials, diplomats, civil servants and business representatives.