Theodoros TSAKIRIS

Dr. Theodoros Tsakiris is an Assistant Professor of Geopolitics and Energy Policy at the University of Nicosia’s Business School and a Visiting Assistant Professor (Spring 2018) at the ESCP Business School in Paris. Dr. Tsakiris is an international Research Associate of ESCP’s London-based Centre for Energy Management and has been, since 2011, the director of the Energy & Geopolitics Program at Greece’s seminal Foreign Policy think-tank ELIAMEP. In this capacity he participates in the Horizon 2020 research program FEUTURE (2016-2019) that studies the prospects of EU-Turkish relations (http://www.eliamep.gr/en/category/security-regional-developments/feuture/)

Between 2014-2015 he was an Associate of the Southeast Europe Program at the LSE where he published a study on the role of Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean (http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/ reports/SU14_7.aspx). Dr. Tsakiris has served in several high-level policy-making positions in Greece and Cyprus, including that of the Director for International Policy Planning for the Greek Minister of Energy. Dr. Tsakiris has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the national oil & gas company of Cyprus, CHC, as well as an adviser to the CEO of the Greek Natural Gas TSO, DESFA and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) consortium.

At UNIC Dr. Tsakiris teaches courses on the (geo)politics, economics and markets of oil & gas. Since September 2017 he is the Coordinator of all energy and hydrocarbons related study programs in the Business School. He is also seconded to the Department of Engineering and the Department of International & European Relations. He is a research associate of the Center for European and International Affairs of the UNIC as well as a member of the Hellenic Association for Energy Economics (HAEE) and the Head of its Energy Geopolitics Committee.

In September 2014, Dr. Tsakiris was appointed by the President of Republic of Cyprus as a non-partisan expert member of the Council for Geostrategic Studies, a body that consults the President on issues of Foreign and Security Policy. He resigned from this position in June 2015. From September 2010 to December 2011 Dr. Tsakiris was the Director of the Observatory for European Energy Policy at the Hellenic Centre for European Studies (EKEM) which was attached to the office of the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs. From January to June 2010 Dr. Tsakiris worked with the Office of the Deputy Minister for Energy of Greece as a special scientific advisor focusing on international oil & gas projects.

In 2008-2009 he served as the Head of the Policy Making Unit at the Special Secretariat for International Energy Policy of the Hellenic Ministry of Development. In this capacity he participated in over one dozen official missions abroad and represented the Greek Minister of Energy and Development at the Governing Board of the International Energy Agency (I.E.A.).

Dr. Tsakiris has also worked (2004-2007) for the Greek Parliament’s Foreign Affairs & National Defense Committee as a scientific advisor to a Senior M.P. and was also (2004-2007) a Research Fellow at the Defense Analysis Institute, the in-house think-tank of the Hellenic Ministry of National Defense. In 2013 and 2014 Dr. Tsakiris taught the course of Energy Diplomacy at the Diplomatic Academy of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Following his Ph.D in 2008 Dr. Tsakiris authored 1 books, 10 monographs, 14 book chapters and 13 peer reviewed articles published in English, Spanish, Arabic and Greek including inter alia journals such as Comparative Strategy, Perceptions, Journal of Energy Security, Journal for Southeastern Europe & Black Sea Studies, Mediterranean Quarterly and the Journal of Transnational Management.

Dr. Tsakiris' work has been cited in academic publications prepared for and published by, George Washington University, King's College London, the Geopolitics of Energy Project of the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs of Harvard University and the Energy Initiative Programme of MIT.

He is a regular commentator on energy and foreign policy issues for Greek and Cypriot electronic media and has also been interviewed by or written op-eds on issues of international energy for Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, El Mundo, Kathimerini and Gazprom’s bi-monthly publication Blue Fuel. He has been a regular contributor on the Greek energy portal www.energypress.gr and the Sunday edition of Cyprus' biggest daily newspaper Fileleftheros www.philnews.com