Serena Giusti is Senior Associate Research Fellow for the Russia, Caucasus and Central Asia Centre at ISPI. She teaches International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis and Art and Politics at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSA) in Pisa. She has worked for the European Commission, Unicef-ICDC and OSCE. She is member of the OSCE Reflection Group on European Security – Challenges at the Societal Level. She is in the Advisory board of Women International Security (WIIS) – Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute in Florence and a Master of Arts in European Studies from the College of Europe (Natolin-Warsaw). She graduated in Political Science at the University of Florence. She has extensively published (articles and volumes) on the accession of Central and Eastern European countries to the EU, on European security and defence policy and on Russia’s Foreign policy.