We are delighted to announce that Professor Graham Room, Professor of European Social Policy in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath, has joined us for a six-month sabbatical.

During his sabbatical, Professor Room will spend time at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, where he hopes to deepen his understanding of the debates on Europe underway in Germany; building on his IPR report, 'From Brexit to European Renewal'. He will also explore how applying complexity science to policy analysis relates to the general study of public policy, and to the development of policy tools. As part of his sabbatical, Professor Room is expected to produce a Policy Brief which will be launched later this year.

We are also thrilled to welcome IPR Advisory Board member, Mats Karlsson, to the IPR as a new Visiting Policy Fellow. Mats Karlsson is former Director of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and is currently Visiting Professor at Columbia University teaching at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). He previously served as World Bank Vice President of External Affairs and United Nations Affairs, and as World Bank Country Director for the West and North Africa regions. Early in his career, Mats worked at the Swedish Foreign Ministry as Chief Economist, he served as Foreign Policy Advisor to Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson as well as to the Commission on Global Governance (1992-1994). He was Swedish State Secretary for international development cooperation (1994-1999).

During his time at the IPR, Mats will contribute to the analysis of future forms of UK-EU security cooperation post-Brexit. He will look at the evolving nature of threats to security, and seek to analyse and understand the roots of new security challenges, political-economy dimensions, as well as impediments to informed, rational dialogue. In taking such a substantive approach to analysing security threats, Mats seeks to better inform discussion regarding how Europe can work better together, specifically with the United Kingdom.

Doctoral Candidate in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Ville-Veikko Pulkka, also joins us for three months as a visiting postgraduate scholar. Currently, Ville-Veikko is conducting a European level analysis on the social and economic impacts of technological unemployment. At the IPR, he will support the project, 'Assessing the case for basic income in light of automation and labour market change, and liaise with colleagues to further his research on Universal Credit.