Dr Isabelle Ioannides is a Senior Policy Analyst working on the evaluation of EU external action in the European Parliament's Research Service (EPRS). She is also a Research Associate in the programmes on Southeast Europe and on the Mediterranean at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), in Athens. She has been a Senior Advisory Board Member of the humanitarian charity ‘Hope for Children’-UNCRC Policy Centre, in Cyprus since 2009. From 2010-2014, she was an Adviser in the Bureau of European Policy Advisers of European Commission President. She has completed her post-doctoral research at the Free University Amsterdam and worked with universities and think tanks across the EU, the USA and the Western Balkans. She has also consulted governments, international organisations and think tanks. Her research and publications examine EU peacebuilding and statebuilding in transitional societies, including the governance of the security sector, and EU crisis management, concentrating on EU performance in the Western Balkans and the Middle East/North Africa. She has hands-on experience on transitional societies, having lived and worked in North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Palestinian Territories, in addition to her native Cyprus where she has been a peace activist.