DIIS is an independent research institution for international studies, financed primarily by the Danish state. We carry out research and analysis on a wide range of issues within the areas of globalisation, security and development. We participate in national and international debates and academic networks, and publish in high-ranking academic journals, always striving to excel in academic scholarship. At the same time, we assess Denmark’s foreign and political situation and inform the Danish media, politicians and the public about our work.
We have approximately 100 employees comprising both research and support staff. We have different academic backgrounds, mostly in social studies, international development studies, military studies and anthropology.
Our research areas are defined on the basis of what we, as researchers, find to be current areas of special interest, and in relation to the surrounding societal and political context. We do basic research, research-based consultancies and commissioned work. Commissioned policy work is most often requested by the Danish Parliament, ministries, or other clients.
DIIS also has a special obligation to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, and thus carries out continual educational and informative work on this subject.
Currently, we are focusing on eight research areas:
• Defence and security
• Foreign policy and EU studies
• Global economy, regulation and development
• Holocaust and genocide
• Migration
• Natural resources and poverty
• Politics and governance
• The Middle East
The unit on Foreign Policy and EU studies is focusing on selected issues of EU external relations, such as EU enlargement and neighborhood, development, migration, the European Security and Defence Policy and EU-NATO relations. With the EU institutional architecture becoming operational after the Lisbon Treaty, the functioning of and prospects for EU external relations will also relate more closely to the foreign policies of individual EU member states—and especially Denmark, which will hold the EU rotating presidency in the first half of 2012. This summer DIIS launched “Lighthouse Europe” – a series of seminars focusing on the substance of EU foreign policy after the Lisbon Treaty.
For details or our activities, please refer to our Website.
Nanna Hvidt (Director), Fabrizio Tassinari (Head of Unit), Svend Aage Christensen (Senior Researcher), Stefano Guzzini (Senior Researcher), Ulla Holm (Senior Researcher), Pertti Joenniemi (Senior Researcher), Hans Mouritzen (Senior Researcher), Henrik Boesen Lindbo Larsen (PhD Candidate), Mikkel Runge Olesen (PhD Candidate), Julie Herschend Christoffersen (Research Assistant)