The Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy

Panayotis Tsakonas is Professor of International Relations, Security Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Athens.

He studied political science, international relations and security studies at the Panteion University of Athens and Reading University, Great Britain.

He has been Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations, Athens (1993-96), post-doctoral Fellow at Harvard University (1998-99), NATO Research Fellow (1999-2000), Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Yale University (2003) and Academic Visitor at St Antony’s College, Oxford University (2015). He has also worked as Special Advisor at the Ministries of National Defense (1996-1998) and Foreign Affairs (1999-2003).

Professor Tsakonas has served as a member of the Academic/Scientific boards of various institutions in Greece and abroad and as President of the BoD of the Center for Security Studies/KE.ME.A (2016-2018).

He has taught for fifteen years at the Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean and at various Universities and institutions in Greece, Turkey, Great Britain, Germany, the United States and Canada.

His monographs, books, articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, and contributions in edited volumes have been published in Greek, English, German, French and Italian. He has authored/co-authored and edited/co-edited ten books. His book: The Incomplete Breakthrough in Greek-Turkish Relations. Grasping Greece’s Socialization Strategy (Palgrave-Macmillan, New York, 2010) was nominated by the Modern Greek Studies Association for the “Edmund Keeley Book Prize”.

Pantelis Ikonomou holds a PhD in nuclear physics of the University of Vienna, Austria .

Worked in the nuclear research reactors in Austria and Greece (1967-1979) .

Senior Officer of the International Atomic Energy Agency –IAEA– (1979-2011); inspector in non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and expert in combatting nuclear terrorism  .

Was trained in the most advanced nuclear facilities and laboratories in USA, former Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France.

Headed numerous inspections of nuclear facilities and materials around the world  .

Coordinated the international programme for the nuclear security of the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece .

Trained IAEA inspectors on nuclear safeguards verification techniques, as well as international security officers on combatting nuclear terrorism .

Wrote numerous confidential reports on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, curried out pertinent technical studies and published nuclear research papers and relevant articles in international media.

Represented the IAEA in international conferences and expert meetings.

Since 2012, Alternate to the Resident Representative of Greece to the IAEA, and scientific advisor of the Permanent Diplomatic Mission of Greece to the international organisations in Vienna.

Received the IAEA Merit Award for Outstanding Performance (1997) and the IAEA Team-Work-Award (2005)

IAEA DG ElBaradei and the IAEA staff were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace (2005).

Dr George N. Tzogopoulos (Ph.D. Loughborough University, UK, 2009) is an expert in media, international relations and Chinese affairs. He is Senior Fellow at ELIAMEP, Director of EU-China Programs and Lecturer at the European Institute of Nice (Centre international de formation européenne, CIFE), Lecturer in International Relations at the Democritus University of Thrace and Fellow at the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) in Israel. George is the author of three books: US Foreign Policy in the European Media: Framing the Rise and Fall of Neoconservatism (IB TAURIS), The Greek Crisis in the Media: Stereotyping in the International Press (Ashgate) and The Miracle of China: The New Symbiosis with the World (Springer and China Social Sciences Press). He has also edited a special CIFE e-book about The EU and the Eastern Mediterranean: The Multilateral Dialogue Option which includes a prologue by Ambassador  Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut

George has systematically (since 2010) cooperated with the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) representing Greece, and has carried out several ELIAMEP research programs under the aegis NATO Public Diplomacy Division. He is also the Co-convener of Israel-Hellenic Forum under the umbrella of B’nai B’rith International and his work regularly appears in national and international media. George has received scholarships by the State Scholarship Foundation-IKY in American Studies (upon pan-Hellenic examinations to conduct his doctoral studies), by the Hellenic Navy (to write the history of the National Fleet Fund, an essay published by the Hellenic Observatory of LSE) and by the Bodossaki Foundation (to conduct research about the coverage of the Greek economic crisis by the media at ELIAMEP). He has been selected as ‘young leader’ by China’s Diplomatic Academy and is an alumnus of the US Department of State after participating in an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) about US Foreign Policy in 2019.

George’s recent ELIAMEP essays about China and the World During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Greece, China and the 17+1 Initiative, The Digital Markets Act: Between European Autonomy and Transatlantic Cooperation, and The Way Forward in Greek-Russian Relations have been selected in the think tank review of the Council of the EU.