Biography

Helena Carrapico is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, in Birmingham (UK), as well as Deputy Director of the Aston Centre for Europe. She is also a Researcher At the Center for Social Sciences of the University of Coimbra. Prior to her current position, she held a Newton International Fellowship at the University of Dundee, in Scotland. She holds a Doctoral degree in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute, in Florence, where she defended in 2010 a thesis entitled 'The European Union and Organized Crime: The Securitization of Organized Crime and its Embedment in the Construction of a Risk-Based Security Policy'. Prior to that, she earned a Masters of Research from the same University in 2006 and a Masters of Arts from the College of Europe in 2003. Her current research focuses on organized crime policies in the context of the EU's external dimension of Justice and Home Affairs, although her broader interests also include Cyber Security, Critical Security Studies, Justice and Home Affairs and European security in general.