Elena Lazarou is the Director General of ELIAMEP. She is an international affairs expert specialising in EU foreign policy, global geopolitics, transatlantic relations, and security and defence issues. She holds over 20 years’ experience working with leading international organisations, think tanks and universities.
At the European Parliament, she served as Head of the External Policies Unit of the Research Service (EPRS) and as Senior Policy Analyst. In these roles she led research and analysis teams focused on foreign policy, defence and security, as well as transatlantic relations. She was also responsible for cooperation with counterparts in third countries, including the US, and represented the Service in its collaboration with the research service of the Ukrainian Parliament. Dr. Lazarou has extensive experience working with major international think tanks, having headed the Centre for International Relations of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Brazil and, earlier, the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory of the Hellenic Centre for European Studies (EKEM). She is a Fellow at Chatham House /the Royal Institute for International Affairs and has collaborated with the Bertelsmann Foundation on transatlantic projects.
In her academic career, Elena was Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation School of Social Sciences. She taught and carried out post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, the University of Sheffield and the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has coordinated international research projects on multilateral governance, foreign policy and European integration. She maintains the position of visiting professor at the FGV Centre of Excellence on EU-South America Global Governance.
She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. She speaks English, French, Portuguese, German and basic Spanish.
Elena has served as an academic adviser on the Jean Monnet EUinLAC programme and was a member of the G20 Think 20 group, the Council of Councils of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and the Advisory Board of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Brazil. She is also Senior Advisor at the European Policy Centre (EPC), a member of the Scientific Committee of ARES (Armament Industry European Research Group).
She is a regular keynote speaker at the High-Level Seminar of the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) and a contributor to the ESDC’s courses. She was the official candidate of the Hellenic Republic and of the Republic of Cyprus for the directorship of the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS).
She has published extensively on foreign policy, defence and international relations and is a frequent contributor to the Greek and foreign press.
