Prof. Dr. Sebastian Bersick
Prof. Bersick is the Executive Director of the Centre for EU-Asia Connectivity (CEAC) at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), Germany, a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence. He also holds a second Jean Monnet Chair of ‘Connecting Europe and Asia: People, Power and Policies’ (CEAPPP). He obtained the first Jean Monnet Chair during the period 2016–19, “International Political Economy of EU-Asia Relations” (IPEEAR).
Prof. Bersick heads the Department of ‘International Political Economy of East Asia’ and is the Vice-Dean at the Faculty of East Asian Studies at RUB. In addition, he is a visiting Professor at the Asia-Europe Institute (AEI), University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), Fudan University, Shanghai, where he functioned as Executive Director of the “Centre for China-EU Relations” and, for example, obtained funding from the Jean Monnet Lifelong Learning Programme on EU-China security cooperation.
He has worked for leading European think tanks (German Institute for International and Security Affairs, SWP, Berlin; German Council on Foreign Relations, DGAP, Berlin; European Institute for Asian Studies, EIAS, Brussels) and as a lecturer at European and Asian universities (e.g., the National University of Ireland, Cork). From 2017–2020, he was a member of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence ‘EU and ASEAN in Dialogue’ at the Asia-Europe Institute (AEI), University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. He is also a regular consultant for European and Asian governments and EU institutions. His publications and teaching expertise have made him a regular speaker on this subject in Asia and Europe.
His research areas cover the international political economy of Asia-Europe relations (e.g., EU-China, EU-ASEAN, ASEM, BRI), East Asian integration, China as a regional and global actor, and international relations in Asia. One of his recent publications is “Chinese Involvement in North European Seaports: The Cases of Belgium and Germany” in: Jean-Marc Blanchard (ed.) (2023), Chinese overseas ports in Europe and the Americas: Understanding Smooth and Turbulent Seas, Routledge.
