Kristi Raik

Dr Kristi Raik is the Director of the International Centre for Defence Studies (ICDS) from 1 January 2025. Her main areas of expertise are European security, strategic competition in Eastern Europe, EU foreign and security policy, the foreign and security policy of the Baltic States and Finland. She has previously worked as Deputy Director of the ICDS, Director of the Estonian Institute of Foreign Policy, Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Relations and an official in the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union. Raik holds a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Turku and is an Associate Professor of International Politics at the University of Turku. She has published numerous scientific publications, reports and analyses on topics related to European foreign and security policy. She has been a visiting fellow at the think tanks Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels and the International Centre for Policy Studies in Kyiv.