Eva Michaels is an Assistant Professor in Intelligence and Security. Her research is situated at the intersection of European security, Intelligence Studies and International Relations. It explores 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 conceptual discussions and theoretical expectations about strategic surprise, the performance of knowledge producers and decision-makers, and experiences of failure in the intelligence-policy interface. 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 Common Market Studies, Intelligence and National Security and Media, War & Conflict.

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Eva Michaels is an Assistant Professor in Intelligence and Security. Her research is situated at the intersection of European security, Intelligence Studies and International Relations. 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 (such as Russia’s war on Ukraine and the fall of Kabul), Eva is interested in conceptual discussions and theoretical expectations about strategic surprise, the performance of knowledge producers and decision-makers, and experiences 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 operations) meets domestic realities in EU member states. A third one looks at political leadership in European security cooperation.

Eva’s background is interdisciplinary and shaped by international mobility. Prior to joining Leiden University, she 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 started two new initiatives while at IBEI – the biennial Barcelona Workshop on International Security and a new research cluster on ‘Revisiting Realist Constructivism in International Relations’. Eva 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. She also worked at KCL as a Research Associate and Teaching Fellow and as a sessional 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 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 Common Market Studies, Intelligence and National Security and Media, War & Conflict. She 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 specialisation course on Intelligence and Policymaking for the MSc in Crisis and Security Management and an elective on Intelligence Failures for the undergraduate Minor in Intelligence Studies. She also contributes to Dr. Tom Maguire’s course on International Intelligence Cooperation and Covert Action.

Publications