RAND Europe Associates

Marc Bentinck left the Dutch foreign service in 2014 after a 35 years’ career in multilateral security diplomacy. He is now a Senior Research Fellow at RAND Europe and a Senior Advisor with a Brussels-based consultancy in European and public affairs. He previously served on the EU’s Political and Security Committee as deputy/acting Netherlands representative.

As part of his earlier foreign postings and secondments, he was Head of Section within NATO’s International Staff in Brussels and Political Advisor with the former Multinational Division (MNF) South in Basrah, Iraq. His last diplomatic assignment was Harvard University, where he was a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

In between his various diplomatic assignments, he has worked as a Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and as a Senior Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for International Relations Clingendael in The Hague.

He was educated as a lawyer, first at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and later at the Harvard Law School where he received his LL.M. in international legal studies. He is a Private Member of the IISS and a guest lecturer at the Free University of Amsterdam. His research interests focus on the EU’s future as a global actor; Western security issues; and the prospects of liberal internationalism.

An ex-Brigadier Royal Marines with 29 years of service, Lenny attended Staffordshire University and thereafter joined the Royal Marines in 1992, passing out of Commando Training in 1993. He holds a specialist qualification as a helicopter pilot and has flown six types of front-line aircraft including the Cobra Attack Helicopter whilst on exchange with the United States Marine Corps.

Combat operations have included: Northern Ireland, Bosnia, East Timor, Libya, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan as well as over 7 years embarked in various UK and foreign Navy ships. He has operated in every extreme environment across the globe including the Arctic.

He has been privileged to command numerous aviation, land and maritime units throughout his career, the most recent being the Commando Helicopter Force.

On the staff he has worked in MoD, PJHQ, NCHQ, JHC and DCDC spanning roles including: capability development and acquisition, operational risk management, transformation, policy/strategy formulation and assurance, amongst others. His last role in uniform was the Head of Futures and Strategic Analysis in the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre.

Dr. Pascal Carlucci is a Lecturer in International Relations at Coventry University and has taught at King’s College London, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom and Royal Holloway University of London. His research interests include the relationship between strategy and the international system, statecraft, strategic competition and global economy.

He worked for more than a decade for both governments and international organisations on political and security challenges. He worked in the Cabinet of the Vice President of the European Commission (Freedom, Security and Justice). He was advisor for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Italy in the Directorate for Political and Security Affairs. In this role he was part of the Delegation of the Italian Presidency to the G7/G8 in 2009.

For four consecutive years, he was seconded to the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan in Kabul where he covered the position of Deputy Head of Police Reform, in charge of the coordination of the advising activities at the Ministry of Interior. He later worked as International Cooperation Adviser for EUCAP-Sahel Niger (European Union capacity building mission) where he covered regional challenges on counterterrorism, migration and transnational criminal activities.

Dr. Carlucci holds a PhD in War Studies awarded by King’s College London and is an alumnus of the College of Europe in Bruges where he earned a M.A. in EU International Relations and Diplomacy. In 2010 he was named European Young Leader by the Atlantik-Brücke.

Dr. Erik Frinking is a senior research fellow at RAND Europe and an internationally recognized expert in international and national security affairs. For more than 25 years, he has been involved in addressing high-level, complex policy issues in various domains (cybersecurity, science & technology, defence and security) in a large number of European and North American countries, and for numerous international organizations. His responsibilities and activities focus on formulating and analyzing policy options, evaluating policy outcomes, and developing strategies.

Between 2008 and 2018, Frinking was a member of the management team at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the director of its National Security Programme/Strategic Futures Programme. Prior to that, he was a senior policy analyst at TNO, the largest defence and security research institute of the Netherlands. From 1992 until 2006, he worked at RAND Europe as the director of the Education, Science & Technology, and Innovation Programme. He holds a master’s degree in political science, University of Leiden.

During his career, Frinking has worked with many different types of security organizations in the Netherlands and beyond, such as the policy departments of ministries of Defence, Justice & Security, and Foreign Affairs; crisis management units in the National Police, Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, and Security Regions; and specific cyberpolicy segments of NATO, the Dutch government and the European Commission. In these partnerships, he was a main contributor to the formulation and deployment of the Dutch National Security Strategy (2007) and the first National Cybersecurity Strategy (2011).

Jonathan Grant is founding director of Different Angles, a consultancy that focuses on the impact of universities and research.

He was formerly Vice President & Vice Principal (Service) at King’s College London. Service is King's award-winning and unique commitment to social responsibility and covers a range of activities including social reform, research impact, service-led learning, volunteering, and environment sustainability.

Jonathan’s main research interests are in biomedical and health R&D policy, research impact assessment, the use of research and evidence in policy and decision-taking, and the social purpose of universities in the 21st century.

Jonathan’s latest book, The New Power University. The social purpose of higher education in the 21st Century, was published by Pearson in March 2021.

Dr Michele Groppi is a Teaching Fellow in 'Challenges to the International Order' at King's College London, Defence Studies Department. He obtained his BA from Stanford University (Honors) in International Relations with a thesis focusing on trade and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

After moving to Israel, he got an MA in Counterterrorism and Homeland Security (Summa Cum Laude) from the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, where he is also a Fellow and Editorial Member at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT).

Michele joined King's PhD Programme in Defence Studies in 2013, concentrating on Islamist radicalisation in Italy. Through extensive field work, he concluded the largest quantitative and qualitative investigation in the field, sparking discussion within Italian academia and governmental institutions.

Michele's main research interests are divided into three main elements: the territorial dimension (terrorism and radicalisation in specific areas, including Italy and Europe); the conceptual domain focusing on theories and mechanisms of radicalisation and terrorism; comparison of drivers amongst terrorists and extremist non-violent populations.

Committed to internationalisation, Michele founded the International Team for the Study of Security - Verona, a cultural association exploring multiple facets of international security, ranging from terrorism to climate change, from great power competition to pandemics, from energy security to space militarisation. As ITSS Verona president, Michele has organised international events, podcasts, and webinar series, bringing together leading experts from the most prestigious institutions.

Shahid Hanif is the Managing Director of the GetReal Institute, an independent, member-led, not-for-profit organisation based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, focused on facilitating the adoption and implementation of real world evidence in health care decision-making. He is the Founder and Director of Avenzoar Consulting Ltd, a life science consultancy supporting data, digital and policy projects, and co-founded Science Policy Think Tank to bring together a diverse group for thoughtful deliberation of key issues as it relates to accelerating innovation for the benefit of patients. Additionally, he is an Affiliate Member of the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh.

Shahid has worked with many different types of life science organisations, including commercial, research, not-for-profit and trade associations. He has worked at GlaxoSmithKline within Global R&D IT and at a marketing agency to deliver digital health strategy and patient support programmes. Shahid worked with pharmaceutical trade associations in UK (the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) and Europe (the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations), including public-private partnerships, on policy, advocacy and communications related to health data, digital health, and health outcomes. He was often consulted to facilitate collaborations amongst life science stakeholders and was part of a successful team that established the Health Data Research Hub for Respiratory Health.

Shahid holds a Doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, a Master’s degree in Information Technology and Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

Kweilen Hatleskog is a seasoned advisor in defence, space and secure-tech. With more than a decade of experience in supporting executives and Boards across both commercial industry and private equity, Kweilen matches deep sector expertise, with a broad business acumen and an understanding of the geo-political context.

As managing partner of K2 Advisory Partners, Kweilen works with blue-chip and venture companies; supporting management with growth options development, market entry strategy and transaction planning.

Prior to starting K2 Advisory Partners, Kweilen was a member of the regional executive at Northrop Grumman, heading corporate development, business planning and government relations for the EMEA business. Previously, Kweilen spent twelve years as corporate development executive and investor; serving variously as a Director for Group M&A at BAE Systems plc, a partner at C5 Capital, and VP of Strategy and Planning in Inmarsat’s Global Government Business.

Kweilen is passionate about the emergent union of techno-democracies and the opportunity to leverage technological innovations to defend and advance democracy. A personal advocate of the Special Relationship, Kweilen is focused on supporting innovative approaches to investment and on growing disruptive businesses to ensure that allied governments can benefit from the technological transformations underway.

An American by birth, Kweilen started her career at the Pentagon, working on inter-agency operations and counter-terrorism policy. There she was awarded both the Office of the Secretary of Defence Award for Exceptional Public Service and the Secretary of the Navy Award for Superior Public Service.

Sonia Ilie is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, where she leads FairLab, the research lab for fair access and success in higher education. The lab builds evidence to understand and tackle inequality in school outcomes and higher education access, participation, and success through the application of quantitative methodologies, experimental and quasi-experimental evaluation approaches, and the use of large-scale survey and administrative data.

Sonia was previously a Research Leader at RAND Europe, where she primarily worked on randomized control trials of interventions looking to improve school outcomes and narrow socio-economic gaps in school attainment.

John Kendall is a Senior Research Fellow at RAND Europe with experience in the areas of technology, cyber, future and unconventional warfare; Russian and Chinese strategy; and operational and strategic war-games. He has worked on UK Ministry of Defence, NATO and overseas projects, as well as having a background in the tech industry. He is a graduate of the Royal College of Defence Studies’ strategy and strategic leadership course.

John has over a decade’s experience in using technology and techniques to improves businesses; has spoken on cyber at NATO’s Science and Technology Organisation and at industry events; and worked on a tech demonstrator for technology strategy and policy options. He has also worked on an industry-government partnership to develop cyber-defence skills. He has analysed future warfare and written the unconventional doctrine for a non-European government blending emerging technology with proven practice and both civil and security techniques.

In military education and wargaming, John has supported or led exercise control and development for around 35 operational and strategic exercises. Predominantly run for the UK’s senior military and government leadership courses but also includes advising on the development of a new NATO scenario.

Russian work has included Russian engagement options; the use of Russia as a proxy in exercises; and academic work on the strategic context and threat of Russian sub-threshold operations. Academic work on China has focussed on cyber as a strategic deterrent in the context of the Chinese rejuvenation strategy. John has also co-authored unconventional operations doctrine and written on future war for an overseas government with a focus on countering Iran.

In the resilience field John has red-teamed Olympic elements of emergency response planning; led a study into the US response to Hurricane Sandy; and supported NHS analytical and planning groups during the first COVID peak.

John uses red-teaming techniques including the Premortem in education and on live problems. Other academic study includes a research into authoritarian dictatorship; utility of military reserve personnel; and analysing State intervention motivations using historical analysis.

Craig Lawrence CBE was commissioned into the Gurkhas in 1983. After studying engineering science at Durham University, he joined his regiment in Hong Kong and then spent the next thirty-three years either serving with Gurkhas or filling a variety of appointments in various military headquarters, including the Ministry of Defence (MOD). Whilst in the Army, he deployed on numerous overseas tours and commanded his Gurkha battalion on operations in the Balkans and in Africa. His final deployment was to Afghanistan where he led the development and implementation of a joint NATO/Afghan strategy to reduce risk to the 2014 Presidential and Provincial Elections.

His last appointment as a serving major general was as the Director of Joint Warfare, where he led the development and delivery of the UK military’s highest-level joint training, as well as a strategy for transforming the MOD into a learning organisation. In 2016, he left the military to join the staff of the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) in London, spending the first two years as the lead for strategy-making before stepping up to Course Director. He left RCDS in December 2020 and now runs his own consultancy business, which helps organisations develop strategy and refine their senior leadership skills.

Craig has an MA in Conflict, Security and Development and an MSc in the Design of Information Systems. A Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, he was awarded a CBE in 2013 and is the author of five books, including a book on strategy and strategic leadership.

Dr Oscar Lyons is a researcher, educator and doctor who specialises in healthcare leadership development.

Oscar worked as a doctor in Hauora Tairāwhiti (a rural NZ hospital), and Counties Manukau (Auckland) before taking up a Rhodes Scholarship. He has a DPhil in “Evaluating Medical Leadership Development Programmes” from Oxford University.

Oscar has designed, delivered and facilitated leadership development programmes for Oxford Master's degrees, certificates and colleges; UK NHS hospitals, summer schools, leadership development consultancies, and research centres. His teaching and research focus on real-world impact. Oscar leads a number of national research and evaluation projects, including a review of leadership development for doctors in the UK Royal Colleges, and a multi-year multi-site evaluation of conflict management training.

Peter Neumann is Professor of Security Studies at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and served as Director of its International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) from 2008 to 2018. In 2017, he was the OSCE’s Special Representative on Countering Violent Radicalisation.

Neumann’s latest book in English is Bluster: Donald Trump’s War on Terror which was published by Hurst and Oxford University Press in early 2020. Prior to this, he authored Radicalized: New Jihadists and the Threat to the West (IB Tauris, 2016), which originally came out as Die neuen Dschihadisten (Ullstein 2015) in German, and has been translated into several other languages. Other books include Old and New Terrorism (Polity Press, 2009); and The Strategy of Terrorism (with M.L.R. Smith) (Routledge, 2008).

Eleanor Neyroud works for the Cambridge Centre for Evidence Based Policing both supervising on the Intelligence Analyst apprenticeship and as a tutor for the online Evidence Based Policing short courses teaching police officers and analysts about policing serious violence using Evidence Based Policing.

She has extensive and in-depth experience of working on Randomised Control Trials in policing. She was the analyst and data specialist on the earlier Turning Point Project based in Birmingham and is currently working as a researcher with the Metropolitan Police on the replication of the Turning Point Project. As well as working on Randomised Controlled Trials, Eleanor has unique experience of working with police data, both for her own research and working as a statistics advisor for MsT students at the University of Cambridge.

Eleanor has worked with the Kent Police’s Innovation Task Force on research involving analysing domestic violence and was the primary analyst responsible for the construction of both the Cambridge Crime Harm Index which has been in use for and the forthcoming Indian Crime Harm Index.

She has a PhD from the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge. The focus of her PhD was the overlap between victimisation and offending in low level offenders who took part in the Turning Point Project.

Prior to beginning her PhD, Eleanor completed an MPhil at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge in Criminology gaining a distinction for her thesis on the victim-offender overlap. Eleanor has also interned at RAND working on analysing mental health diversion data and has a Bachelors degree in Equine Science from the University of the West of England.

Tom Plant is the founder and Principal at research, strategy and consulting firm Liminal Minds Limited, which supports governments, and non-profit and philanthropic organisations in their work on a range of global security issues.

Until January 2022, he was Director of RUSI’s Proliferation and Nuclear Policy programme, and Director of the UK Project on Nuclear Issues. He remains a Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI. Prior to joining RUSI in June 2017, he was responsible for technical oversight of arms control verification research programmes at the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment, including collaborations and exchanges with counterparts in China, Norway, Sweden, and the US. He also worked at the UK Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on a range of non- and counter-proliferation issues, particularly in relation to North Korea and Iran, as well as on the UK nuclear weapons programme.

His current research interests include the ethics of nuclear weapons, the relationship between the state and the individual, future technology and complexity, and game design for research and education. Tom is available to mentor emerging scholars and professionals in defence and security, particularly those from less-advantaged backgrounds.

Patrick Porter is Professor of International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham. His research interests are great power politics, realism, foreign and defense policy in the US and UK, and the causes and consequences of power shifts.

He has written four books. His book Blunder: Britain's War in Iraq was shortlisted for the British Army Military Book of the Year Prize, 2019. His most recent book is The False Promise of Liberal Order: Nostalgia, Delusion and the Rise of Trump. He also wrote The Global Village Myth: Distance, War and the Limits of Power and Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes.

His work has appeared in journals including International Security, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, International Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, Politico, The Critic, The New Statesman, Unherd, and the Australian Financial Review.

He has appeared as an expert witness before the UK’s parliamentary Defence Select Committee, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee, and the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

Dr Samir Puri is a Research Fellow at RAND Europe. He is also a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King's College London and Adjunct Professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

In his time working with RAND Europe he has contributed to projects for the UK MoD and US DoD on a range of defence and security topics. A list of his RAND publications is available online. In 2018-19 he worked with RAND while serving as an academic advisor to the MoD's think tank DCDC.

He has previously worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where his assignments included counter-terrorism strategy and policy support to a number of peace processes. In 2014-15 he was seconded for a year to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in east Ukraine.

Dr Puri was awarded his Ph.D. by Cambridge University. His thesis has been published as a book, Fighting and Negotiating With Armed Groups. His latest book, The Great Imperial Hangover, was published in July 2020.

Parashar Ramanuj is a Consultant in the Psychiatry of Musculoskeletal Disease at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital where he works principally with people who have suffered life-changing spinal cord injuries and also people with chronic pain conditions. He has degrees in Clinical Neuroscience and Clinical Medicine from King’s College London. He completed his psychiatric training in Sussex and at the St Thomas’ and Maudsley Hospitals in London.

He was made National Medical Director’s Fellow at Public Health England in 2012 and was Senior Clinical Attaché to the Mental Health Policy Unit at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2014. He helped the national roll out of an innovative commissioning mechanism to improve the physical health of people with serious mental illness. He is a member of the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership where he is currently working on a cross-national collaboration to benchmark mental health systems.

Dr Ramanuj has a particular interest in how health care systems can provide holistic care to individuals and populations, particularly on how mental health and physical care services can be integrated. He was appointed a Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in 2015 and was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York 2015-2016. Other research and policy interests include encephalitis, spinal cord rehabilitation, health care resource use and public mental health.

Professor Andrew Silke holds a Chair in Terrorism, Risk and Resilience at Cranfield University. He has a background in psychology and criminology and has worked both in academia and for government.

His primary research interests include terrorism, conflict, crime and policing, and he is internationally recognised as a leading expert on terrorism and low intensity conflict. He has a wide range of publications including several books, with his most recent being The Routledge Handbook on Terrorism and Counterterrorism (2019).

Andrew has worked with a variety of government departments and law enforcement and security agencies. In the United Kingdom these include the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defence, the Prison & Probation Service, the London Metropolitan Police as well as several other UK police forces. Overseas he has worked with the European Commission, the United Nations, the United States Department of Justice, the United States Department of Homeland Security, NATO, the European Defence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He has served with the European Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network Centre of Excellence (RAN CoE) which works with practitioners to develop state-of-the-art knowledge to prevent and counter radicalisation to violent extremism. Prior to this, he served both on the Commission’s European Network of Experts on Radicalisation and on the Commission’s Expert Group on Violent Radicalisation. He has provided invited briefings on terrorism-related issues to Select Committees of the UK House of Commons and is a member of the Cabinet Office National Risk Assessment Behavioural Science Expert Group.

Richard Warnes is a Research Fellow at RAND Europe. His interests lie in the fields of counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, policing, intelligence and the military, with a doctorate on ‘The Significance of Human Factors in Effective Counter-Terrorism’.

He has worked on a number of EU FP7 projects relating to domestic security, counter-radicalisation and counter-terrorism as well as EU Impact Assessments relating to the security of explosives, precursors and CBRN materials. In addition, between 2008 – 2013 he conducted extensive field research in Iraq and Afghanistan for a Government client project reviewing capacity building amongst local police and security forces.

Prior to joining RAND in 2007, he served in the Metropolitan Police for nine years, including Special Branch and Counter-Terrorism Command. Before his police career, he served in the Army Intelligence Corps as a reservist for seven years and full time for two and a half years, including a tour of Bosnia. Between completing his first degree and military service, he worked for seven years in international relief. He is on the Steering Committee of the European Experts Network on Terrorism Issues (EENeT) and has been Commissioned as an Officer in the Army Reserves.

Dr. Erez Yerushalmi is a Reader in Economics at Birmingham City Business School and Director of the Centre for Applied Finance and Economics (CAFÉ) at BCU. He is a senior research fellow at RAND Europe. Erez has over 20 years of professional experience in economic research and consultancy and has produced many high impact academic papers and research reports at local, national, and international level (see here). Erez’s research focuses on applied policy analysis and development economics, on topics covering labour economics, environmental economics, health economics, cost-benefit analysis, infrastructure and transportation assessment, energy modelling and forecasting. He is a specialist in applied computable general equilibrium (CGE) models and has extensive experience in quantitative economic modelling and econometric forecasting.

At Birmingham City University (BCU), Erez teaches Industrial Economics, Advanced Economic Theory, and Macroeconomics. He attained his PhD in Economics from the University of Warwick, UK, in 2013. He then worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Employment Research (IER) at the University of Warwick, before joining BCU in 2017.