Sarah Wolff

Profile

Professor Wolff is the Director of the Center for European Research at Queen Mary and the Director of the QMUL Master of Arts in International Relations at the University of London Institute in Paris. She is Principal Investigator for the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence NEXTEUK project on the future of EU-UK Relations. Senior Research Associate at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingendael), her research interests include EU politics and public policy, non-majoritarian agencies, Justice and Home Affairs policy ( EU migration and border management policies), as well as EU external relations and EU development aid. She is an expert on EU-Islam relations, Euro-Mediterranean relations and is since 2017 Editor of Mediterranean Politics. She is co-convener of the ECPR Mediterranean Politics and Society Research Network since 2019 with F. Volpi. She is also a member of the advisory body to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Tunisia at the UK Parliament. She has taught at University College of London, the London School of Economics, the University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) and is Visiting Professor at the College of Europe.

Sarah's experience on EU politics and foreign policy was gained in various public, think tanks and higher education institutions. Before joining academia, Dr Wolff worked at the European Commission and the European Parliament. She is involved in facilitating a permanent and dynamic dialogue between citizens, academia and practitioners, as well as for active public engagement.

Teaching

• Director of the MA in International Relations (Paris)
• PG teaching: POLM976 War and Peave in International Context (Paris)

Research Interests:

My research interests include European Union politics and policy-making, EU-UK relations, Justice and Home Affairs policy, as well as EU relations with North Africa, Middle East and Euro-Mediterranean relations. In 2022/2023 I am co-investigator on a research project on the concept of civic duty in times of pandemic (Co-Duties, financed by Norwegian Research Council) and will continue to develop research on the concept of coordinative Europeanization and EU governance in times of permanent emergency (with S. Ladi).

My current research in the field of EU foreign policy is embedded in critical international relations approaches challenging Eurocentrism and European post-colonialism in EU foreign policy. More specifically I have developed innovative research on the role of secularism and religion in EU foreign policy. I am also involved in understanding the transformation of the EU and the UK as security providers in a post-Brexit environment.

I am actively contributing to the research community as a steering board member of the EPCR Standing Group on the European Union (elected 2022) and a committee member of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (elected 2021).

Examples of research funding:

• 2022-2023 Co-Duties:Democratic Duties, Collective Action, and the Greater Good after COVID-19, Norwegian Research Council, PI Simon Reid-Henry (PRIO) £82,965.83 attributed to working package on France and Europe that I lead.
• 2019-2022 Principal Investigator NEXTEUK Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on the future of EU-UK relations, £299.798 (co-funding European Commission 42%). Preparation phase, more info here.
• 2019 Strategic Impact Funding, HSS, QMUL, to fund a research and YouGov poll on British views of Europeans in a context of Brexit negotiations, £3000. The findings of the project were published on the QMUL HSS homepage(incl. a link to the data tables), in The Conversation, on the ‘UK in a Changing Europe’ website here and here, and on the LSE blog.
• 2018 Center for Public Engagement, QMUL, ‘Europe at all costs’ documentary on refugees in Calais and Ceuta (with. A. Hlaoua) £1000
• 2018 Small Grant University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES), £1000 to fund an ‘Decentring Europe: Critical Approaches to European Foreign Policy’ one-day exploratory workshop on 7 March 2019 at ULIP in Paris.
• Leverhulme Research Grant 2014/2015 RF-2014-516 on Explaining European Union’s engagement with Moroccan and Tunisian Islamist parties’ (43,930£)
• Fulbright-Schuman Scholar Fellowship 2014 Does Religion matter in Transatlantic Engagement with Islamist political parties? Hosted at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington DC. (9.000 euros)
• Early Career Leverhulme Fellowship 2012 (declined due to taking up a permanent position) (23.000£)
• Jean Monnet Research activity, European Commission, DG Research 2011/2012 on EU Agencies and their External Relations, which way forward? (16.630 euros)
• Fellowship European Foreign and Security Policy Studies Programme 2007-2009 Compagnia di San Paolo (Italy) Rijksbankens Jubileumsfond,(Sweden) and Volkswagen Stiftung (Germany) The Mediterranean Dimension of EU’s Internal Security (35.000euros)

Supervision

Sarah Wolff is currently supervising Tinahy Andriamasomanana on the influence of the European Court of Justice on the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and Manuela Jorge on Readmission Agreements’ narratives and necropolitical mechanisms: a case study of the Joint Way Forward declaration between the EU and Afghanistan

In the past she has co-supervised David Gazsi on EU agencies and Europeanization and Dimitris Skleparis (completed in 2015) on securitisation of migration and the politics of migrant activism.

Public Engagement

Senior Research Associate Fellow with the Netherlands Institute for International Relations

Visiting Lecturer in the MSc in Migration management of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.

Prior to joining Queen Mary, I was Teaching Fellow in EU Politics and Programme Director of the Msc in European Public Policy at UCL. I worked as a Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for International Relations (2009-2011). I was an international aid officer in the Directorate for Latin America of EuropeAid (European Commission 2007-2009) and worked as assistant for a Member of the European Parliament (2005-2006).

I was a fellow of the European Foreign and Security Policy Studies Program. During her PhD I was a visiting fellow at the Observatory of European Foreign Policy (UAB-Barcelona), the CEDEJ (Cairo) and the IFOP (Amman).