What do you particularly appreciate about teaching at the Institute?
Teaching at the Institute is enormously rewarding for two reasons.
First, our students come from around the world with remarkable levels of motivation and curiosity. This can create classrooms of diverse viewpoints and rich discussions, and research projects often display great potential. I learn so much from advising and providing feedback to projects, and students’ perspectives and passion inspires and uplifts me.
Second, the Institute offers real freedom in how we teach. Substantively, this allows me to design courses that reflect a changing world and my evolving research agenda. Pedagogically, it gives space to experiment and adapt. Each cohort brings its own dynamics, and what works brilliantly one year may need tinkering the next. That ongoing process of reflection and adjustment — learning! — is something I value deeply.
How has your work evolved over the past few years at the Institute? How do you see it evolving now that you are a Professor?
I joined the Institute in 2015 as an assistant professor in environmental politics, with the expectation that I would also contribute to methods education. Over the past decade here, my work in these areas has deepened and broadened. I remain rooted in global environmental politics, and have been amazed by committed staff and students through interactions in CIES, HCGS, the sustainability committee, and while heading the MINT environment specialisation. I’ve gone beyond fisheries governance to research, advise and/or teach on freshwater, energy, climate, forests, biodiversity, oceans, polar regions, outer space, trade, health, AI and data technology. I sought these comparative perspectives deliberately, and the experiences have been intellectually invigorating and reinforced my belief in the value of trans- or even intra-disciplinary collaborative work.
My contributions to methods education have also evolved. In addition to statistics and research design, I have long taught a course on social networks, still a special highlight for me. I enjoy introducing people to a new interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological language that puts relations and interdependencies first. More recently, I’ve become interested in time and text as analytical lenses and methodological tools. These areas, like networks, display the interdependencies that make contemporary political life so complex and fascinating and thus fun to teach and research.
Looking ahead, this promotion gives me the confidence and space to devote time and energy into developing conceptual and computational tools to better understand a complex, rapidly changing world and how we might act in it.
You have been Director of the Global Governance Centre since 2023. What are the centre's objectives and how has it developed in recent years?
I have been co-directing the GGC together with my colleague Lucile Maertens, including a period last year directing the centre while she was on leave.
What makes the GGC a very special place is the diversity of its people and projects. GGC researchers study global governance in various forms and locations using a wide range of theoretical and methodological choices. Global governance is a wide umbrella, but that breadth makes the centre vibrant. My goal is to maintain a space where different approaches can exchange and thrive, even when turbulent times might push us to concentrate on the latest and loudest.
A lot has been happening at the GGC. Together with our truly wonderful staff, we have been investing in processes that help the centre deliver its mission effectively in a significantly changed environment. While much work is behind the scenes, it enables the GGC to build the foundations for targeted initiatives.
One such initiative is our podcast collaboration with the Groupement de recherche sur l'action multilatérale/ Centre national de la recherche scientifique (GRAM/CNRS), Practicing Multilateralism, which offers an additional format for engaging with current debates to our talk series and blog. Our postdocs and PhD students have taken a leading role, and the first episodes on global health and human rights are out now!
Another is investing in the next generation of global governance scholars. We’ve been integrating PhD students working on global governance into the GGC with interdisciplinary doctoral workshops, and our new SWIPES seminars for (post)doctoral work in progress incubates research and fosters intellectual exchange. If you are part of the Institute’s research community and working on global governance, we would be delighted to hear from you.
A third major development is the creation of the Global Governance Research Centre Consortium (GGRCC) together with peer research centres around the world. The GGRCC aims to exchange insights on the future of global governance and multilateralism, while also creating opportunities for early-career researchers to receive feedback, build networks, and pursue mobility. With support from the Institute’s direction, the GGC has played a central role in founding this initiative.
These are just a few examples of what has been happening at the GGC, and we look forward to sharing more soon.