Eva Michaels is an Assistant Professor in Intelligence and Security at Leiden University, and a Senior Fellow at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). Her research explores, among others, how Europeans anticipate and respond to crises due to the escalation of violent conflict. Focusing on recent cases (e.g. Russia’s war on Ukraine and the fall of Kabul), Eva is interested in discussions of surprise, the performance of knowledge producers and decision-makers, and investigations of failure in the intelligence-policy interface.

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Eva Michaels is an Assistant Professor in Intelligence and Security at Leiden University, and a Senior Fellow at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). Her research is situated at the intersection of Foreign Policy Analysis, Intelligence Studies and International Relations, with an emphasis on European security. In her main research stream, she explores how Europeans prepare for and respond to crises due to the escalation of violent conflict. Focusing on recent cases (e.g. Russia’s war on Ukraine and the fall of Kabul), Eva is interested in discussions of surprise, the performance of knowledge producers and decision-makers, and investigations of failure in the intelligence-policy interface. This also includes discussing how external experts anticipate crises and how their estimates may inform crisis responses. A second research stream investigates how EU rhetoric on security and defence (e.g. regarding the notion of strategic autonomy or crisis management) meets domestic realities in EU member states. A third one looks at political leadership in European security cooperation. Eva also contributes to a reappraisal of realist constructivism in international relations.

Eva is a co-editor of Estimative Intelligence in European Foreign Policy (Edinburgh University Press, 2022). Her research has also been published in various peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of European Integration, Journal of Common Market Studies, European Security, Intelligence and National Security and Media, War & Conflict. Eva further authored a book on Clausewitz and New Wars (Galda, 2008), a dozen book chapters, and 20 policy reports and briefs, including for the European Commission.

Eva’s background is interdisciplinary and shaped by international mobility. A political scientist by training, she holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London (2016), with a thesis exploring the behaviour of France and the United Kingdom in the preparation phase for EU military operations in Africa. Prior to joining Leiden, Eva was a Beatriu de Pinós Research Fellow at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI), where she led a project on the national acceptability of European crisis responses. She also worked for several years at King’s College London as a Research Associate and Teaching Fellow and as an adjunct lecturer at the ESSCA School of Management in Paris and Angers. Eva gained further experience outside of academia, among others as a freelance conflict analyst and with think tanks in London, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Brussels and Johannesburg focusing on European and African security issues.

Eva is committed to knowledge exchange within and beyond academia, the latter by providing media commentary and engaging in practitioner-academic dialogues and public seminars.

At Leiden University, Eva convenes a course on Intelligence and Policymaking for the Intelligence & National Security track of the MSc in Crisis and Security Management and an elective on Intelligence Failures for the Minor in Intelligence Studies.