Ovsiannikova, Iana

Iana Ovsiannikova was a communication intern at UNU-CRIS who holds a Bachelor’s degree in International relations from Moscow State Linguistic University. During her studies, she was an exchange student at Université Lumière Lyon II in France, where she focused on international law and French politics. In her Bachelor's thesis, she examined secondary sanctions and their impact on the Transatlantic Alliance.  Iana continued to pursue European studies at the College of Europe in Bruges for her Master's degree. In addition to external aspects of EU policies and institutions, she focused on development management, security, and transatlantic relations. She continued her research in sanctions for her Master's thesis which focuses on a comparative analysis of the EU and the UK sanctions regimes in the post-Brexit period. Based on an analysis of the legal mechanisms of sanctions imposition, she has made case studies on Belarus, Myanmar, and Human Rights sanctions regimes.

Apart from sanctions, Iana has a genuine interest in security. In the course of her Master’s degree, she covered all aspects of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy. As a result of her course on the Drivers of the European Defence Cooperation, she drafted a policy brief on the EU Strategic Compass as a Security Provider for the French National Security Review. She could apply her skills during the internships at the think tanks - Russian International Affairs Council, Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, and "European Dialogue". Along with research activities, she organised online expert discussions. Her interest in communications has grown as a result of her journalism experience with the Russian newspaper "Kommersant."

Under the supervision of Andrew Dunn, Iana contributed to strengthening the voice of UNU-CRIS by publicising events, spreading the work of UNU-CRIS via different channels of communication, articles editing, and performing policy-relevant research.