Francis Baert is Project Researcher at the Comparative Regional Integration Studies Programme of the United Nations University (UNU-CRIS).  He is member of the Project Secretariat of the 7^th Framework Programme research project EU-GRASP funded by the European Commission (2009-2011). EU-GRASP aims to contribute to the analysis and articulation of the current and future role of the EU as a global actor in multilateral security governance, in a context of challenged multilateralism, where the EU aims at “effective multilateralism”. EU-GRASP will examine the notion and practice of multilateralism in order to provide the required theoretical background for assessing the linkages between the EU's current security activities with multi-polarism, international law, regional integration processes and the United Nations system.

He is also a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of Ghent, Centre for European Studies.

He was Research Assistant to the UNU-CRIS Director in Bruges in 2007-2008. In this function, he was junior coordinator of different projects under GARNET, a Network of Excellence on Global Governance, Regionalisation and Regulation: the role of the EU, funded under the European Commission’s 6^th Framework Programme (including the Mobility Scheme and Ph.D. Schools).

He is a member of the Editorial Board and Book Review Editor of Wereldbeeld, the Journal of the United Nations Association Flanders Belgium and joined as a Member of the Management Board of the association in 2007.

Francis Baert holds a M.A in International and European Law from the Free University of Brussels (VUB) and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Ghent.

His research interests include: multilateralism, theory of regional integration, comparative regional integration, interregionalism, security studies and the role of the EU in the world.

Contact:

E-mail: fbaert (@) cris.unu.edu

Tel: +3250 47 11 06

Fax: +32 50 47 13 09