The Institute for European Studies (IES) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is an academic Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and a policy think tank that focuses on the European Union in an international setting. The Institute advances academic education and research in various disciplines, and provides services to policy-makers, scholars, stakeholders and the general public.
The International Security cluster at the Institute for European Studies operates at the crossroads of geopolitical analysis, strategic studies and European studies. In keeping with an increasingly turbulent international landscape, cluster researchers analyse the on-going re-ordering of the European political architecture and how it relates to the wider world. In doing so, they pay particular attention to geopolitical competition between Russia and the West, instability in the broader Middle East, the rise of Asia and its implications for Europe and the transatlantic relationship, the changing face of international diplomacy and the exigencies of modern warfare.