Beatrice Albertha De Graaf - Biography#

Beatrice de Graaf (1976) holds the Chair of History of International Relations & Global Governance at Utrecht University (since February 2014). In December 2019 she was rewarded the title of Distinguished Professor at Utrecht University.

She studied Modern History and German language and culture in Utrecht and Bonn (1998, cum laude) and received her PhD from Utrecht University in 2004 (on the GDR, the Dutch churches and the peace movement, bestowed with the Max van der Stoel Human rights award). She was co-founder of the Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism at Leiden University, Campus The Hague in 2007, where she was appointed professor of Conflict and Security History in 2011. With an NWO VIDI/ASPASIA grant on 'The Making of a National Security State' and as fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS, on the topic of 'Terrorists on Trial') De Graaf contributed to the emerging research field of security history. Her book Evaluating Counterterrorism Performance (2011) was internationally ranked amongst the top 150 terrorism books.

In 2013, De Graaf was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for the project Securing Europe, fighting its enemies. The Making of a security culture in Europe and beyond, 1815-1914. Together with an international team of researchers she investigates the origins and makings of a European security culture in the long 19th century.

Furthermore, De Graaf participates in international and national debates on terrorism and security, in academia but also in the printed and broadcasted media. She is also member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciencies (KNAW), science columnist for NRC Handelsblad, and sits on the editorial boards of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Terrorism and Political Violence. Together with Alexander Rinnooy Kan, she was appointed as chair of the Dutch National Research Agenda in 2015. In 2018, De Graaf was awarded the Stevin Prize (2.5 MEur), the highest distinction in Dutch academia. She is currently involved in analyzing the ISIS Files, as fellow at GWU/New York Times, in running the TerInfo educational project (https://ter-info.nl/over-ons), and in her 19th century project Securing Europe.