Elena Atanassova-Cornelis

Non-Resident Research Fellow

Areas of expertise: Japanese foreign, security and defence policy; security, geopolitics and strategic issues in Asia and the Indo-Pacific region; EU-Asia relations

Languages: Bulgarian; Russian; English; Dutch; French; Japanese; German and Polish (basic skills)

Dr. Elena Atanassova-Cornelis is a Professor of International Politics of the Asia-Pacific at the University of Antwerp (UA) and Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium. She is concurrently an Associate Fellow within the Global Fellowship Initiative of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Switzerland; an Adjunct Professor at the Brussels School of Governance (BSoG) of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and a Visiting Professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), Japan. She was the first Japan Chair at ICDS from October 2023 to September 2024.

Dr. Atanassova-Cornelis has authored numerous academic articles, book chapters, briefing papers and policy reports covering Japanese foreign and security policy; alliances, alignments and major power relations in the Indo-Pacific; regional security in Northeast Asia, including the geopolitics of the Taiwan Strain and the Korean Peninsula; as well as regional multilateralism and EU-Asia relations. She is regularly invited as a speaker at international conferences, and high-level expert and policy-oriented meetings, and as a guest lecturer at various universities in both Europe and Asia. She has extensive experience in professional and executive training on Asia-related topics in programmes designed for European, Asian and other countries’ government and military officials, diplomats, civil servants and business representatives.

Previously Dr. Atanassova-Cornelis was a Visiting Professor at Ghent University, Belgium; the Lille Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Lille), France; and the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies. She was also a Senior Associate Analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris, and a holder of the Taiwan Fellowship of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China on Taiwan. She was a recipient of the Monbusho Scholarship of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and pursued graduate studies at Sophia University in Tokyo. She holds a PhD in Japanese Studies from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), Belgium.

Selected Publications:

Author's articles