vboas@uni-koeln.de
Vanessa Boas graduated with a BA in French and Spanish from the University of Bristol in 2007. Subsequently, she completed a one-year MSc course in International Relations at the same institution, focusing on EU-Russian relations. In 2009, Vanessa began a Master in Interdisciplinary European Studies at the College of Europe and specialised in Eastern Europe and the CIS. Her professional experience has consisted of 1 year working in the field of tourism and translation in France and Spain, 6 months in Central Asia at the European Union Delegation to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and four months in Armenia interning at GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) in the field of Gender.
| October 2010 – February 2011 | University of Cologne |
| March 2011 – October 2011 | The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels |
| November 2011 – March 2012 | Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Rome |
| April 2012 – September 2013 | University of Cologne |
Title of research project: The EU as a normative foreign policy actor in Central Asia
Supervisor: Professor Wolfgang Wessels (University of Cologne)
Co-Supervisor: Professor Jiri Vykoukal (Charles University Prague)
The purpose of this research project is to analyse the nature of the European Union’s foreign policy towards Central Asia and to gauge its normative impact. This endeavour strives to ascertain whether the European Union is a consistent normative actor in its relations with Central Asia and to examine its propensity to cast aside its own values in pursuit of its strategic interests. In addition, it seeks to shed light on the possibility of European normative influence in the region, taking both the authoritarianism of the incumbent governments and the presence of competing non-democratic actors (Russia and China) into account.
Teaching:
