Ovsiannikova, Iana

Iana Ovsiannikova is a PhD Fellow at UNU-CRIS within the Regions and Cities Governance Lab (Re-LAB) Cluster and at the Department of Political Science at Ghent University affiliated with Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES) and Multidisciplinary International Network on Sanctions (MINOS). Iana’s research focuses on sanctions cooperation, namely, how regional countries of sanctions’ targets interact with sanctions. Within the scope of her doctoral research, Iana will explore regional leadership in the UN Security Council sanctions on African countries and how sanctions impact regional political and institutional frameworks in Central Asia in view of the EU's more assertive use of positive incentives and secondary sanctions. Her other research interests include: the role of regional organisations in peace building and post-conflict transition and human rights accountability via sanctions.

Iana obtained her MA degree in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies at the College of Europe where she performed comparative research on the EU and UK sanctions policies after Brexit on the case study of Belarus. In the past two years, Iana worked as an expert and project manager at a development cooperation consultancy based in Brussels, working on EU-funded projects on transitional justice and media support in Africa.