The main aim of CHIOS is to foster research, cooperation, dissemination and teaching – geared towards academia and public policy development both on the historical roots and current predicaments of Northern Europe’s geopolitical position in a European, Atlantic and global perspective.
As such, CHIOS has three focus areas:
Prof Michael Jonas, PhD 2009 (Univ. Helsinki), habilitation 2016 (Helmut-Schmidt-Univ.), is a modern historian interested in the history of international politics, diplomacy, international law, war, and conflict. Educated in Berlin and Helsinki, he has worked on the military, political, and diplomatic history of both world wars, small states in international politics, and forms of international organization and empire. He has been based at Helmut-Schmidt-University, University of the Federal Armed Forces, Hamburg, since 2009, functioning – from late 2024 onwards – as the director of HSU’s Centre for History, Strategy and International Order (CHIOS). Besides his association with HSU, Michael Jonas is an adjunct professor (docent) of European History at the University of Helsinki. He has also been a visiting research fellow at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War centre (Michaelmas 2010), a visiting lecturer in the War Studies programme of the University of Glasgow, and a visiting professor at the University of Florence (2023, 2024). A more detailed biography and full list of publications can be found here. Read more
Louis Clerc, PhD (University of Strasbourg, 2007), is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Turku. His research focuses on the history of international relations, with particular emphasis on diplomacy, public diplomacy, and cultural diplomacy in the Nordic countries. He has published extensively on Franco-Nordic relations and the evolution of diplomatic practices, and is a founding member of the Network for New Diplomatic History. Educated in Strasbourg, Clerc earned his doctorate in contemporary history and later became docent in European contemporary history at Turku. He has held several academic leadership roles, including Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Turku (2020–2022). Read more
Haakon A. Ikonomou is a tenure track assistant professor at the Saxo-Institute at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). A historian of international organizations, internationalism, global governance, international bureaucracy, and diplomacy, he takes inspiration from digital, global, prosopographical, biographical, institutional, social, and oral history approaches. From 2023 to 2025, he is PI on the project Autonomy and Expertise in International Administrations, 1940s-1970s (Independent Research Fund Denmark) and from 2025 to 2030 he will be heading the project INNER_LEAGUE A social-bureaucratic history of the League of Nations Secretariat (ERC Consolidator Grant). Ikonomou is director of HUM:Global (Faculty of Humanities, UCPH), steering group member and co-founder of GloBio (Global Biography Working Group), and co-chair of META-UN (4EU+ Global Outreach Project). For a full list of publications, see his research profile. Read more
Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs, Yale University
Director, Centre for International Security, Hertie School, Berlin
Milbank Prof. of Politics and Int. Affairs, Princeton University
Professor of Modern History, University of Oslo
History Department, University of Marburg
Director, Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, SAIS
CEMES & META-UN Chair, Saxo Inst., University of Copenhagen
fm. Director, Centre for Global History, University of Konstanz
Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs, UT Austin
Professor of European History, University of Geneva
Director, Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge
Institute for History, Leiden University
Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen
President, Helmut-Schmidt-University
Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen
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