Event Gallery
June 19, 2025
Roundtable:
From Bread to Bullets: Is Multilateralism in Trouble?
A Roundtable Discussion with Women Leaders
Venue:
Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy
Moderator:
Dr. Sara J. Chehab, Senior Research Fellow, Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, Abu Dhabi
Speakers:
Berangere Boell, United Nations Resident Coordinator for the UAE
Sajeda Shawa, Head of United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in UAE
Iva Hamel, World Bank Resident Representative for the UAE and Bahrain
Hana Al Hashimi, Senior Country Manager, OPEC Fund for International Development
Dr. Henriette Müller, Assistant Professor of Gender, Governance and Society at NYUAD
Dr. Victoria Stewart, Senior Research Fellow, Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, Abu Dhabi
Amid rising global tensions and declining support for international institutions, the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy is hosting a roundtable with women leaders in the UAE to explore the challenges facing multilateralism and discuss possible solutions.
Photo credit: Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy
May 10, 2025
Book Roundtable:
The EU High Representative: Foreign Policy Leadership in a Changing World, written by Dr. Niklas Helwig
European Union Studies Association, 19th Biennial Conference, Philadelphia
Chair:
Federiga Bindi (University of Rome Tor Vergata; University of Colorado)
Participants:
Niklas Helwig (Finnish Institute of International Affairs)
Henriette Müller (New York University Abu Dhabi)
Monika Sus (Hertie School Berlin)
Book Synopsis:
This book roundtable explores current trends in academic research on leadership in the EU’s foreign and security policy. It brings together experts on various aspects of leadership studies, EU politics and Foreign Policy Analysis. The focus will be on the position of EU High Representative / Vice President of the Commission, which has received heightened scholarly attention in recent years. How did the four EU High Representatives so far – Javier Solana (pre-Lisbon treaty), Catherine Ashton, Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrel – with very different backgrounds, ways of working and personalities take up the challenge of formulating the EU’s answers to foreign policy challenges in an ever-changing international environment? How did the position evolve in the complex and shifting institutional landscape in Brussels, in which other actors wield extensive powers over the EU’s external relations? What lessons to draw for future officeholders, who will have to make their mark in a world characterized by the return of geopolitics? The roundtable participants will also discuss more general lessons for academic research on foreign policy agents and their leadership opportunities in various organizational and policy settings. The recently published monograph “The EU High Representative: Foreign Policy Leadership in a Changing World” by Niklas Helwig (London: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer) provides the starting point for the conversation.
Foto credit: Niklas Helwig
March 4, 2025
Invitation/Online Talk:
Presentation of the ANNUAL REVIEW of the EU 2023
Journal of Common Market Studies
Department of Social and Political Studies, University of Bologna
Editors of the Annual Review of the EU:
Elena Baracani
Gianfranco Baldini
Sorina Cristina Soare
Participants:
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
Amelia Hadfield and Mustafa Demir
Sandrino Smeets and Derek Beach
Pierre Bocquillon
Helena Carrapico and Benjamin Farrand
Sarah Wolff
Tim Haughton
Andrea Pareshi
The full program is available here.
June 20, 2024
Roundtable:
Evaluating the von der Leyen Presidency – A Commission in the Midst of Polycrises
ECPR Conference/Standing Group on the European Union, University of Lisbon
Chair:
Gabriele Abels, University of Tübingen
Speakers:
Johanna Kantola, University of Helsinki
Emanuela Lombardo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Henriette Müller, NYU Abu Dhabi
Alvaro Oleart, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Uwe Puetter, Europa-Universität Flensburg
The Roundtable will bring together scholars of the European Commission, EU gender research, and leadership studies to discuss the performance of the von der Leyen Commission and the role of the Commission Presidency. Ursula von der Leyen is the first female president of the European Commission. Her term in office 2019–2024 is coming to an end. From the start, her incumbency has been marked by unprecedented challenges and compounding crises, from her nomination and election in the European Parliament in 2019. Amidst these extraordinary circumstances, von der Leyen has steered forward an exceptionally ambitious political agenda, pushing European integration into new territory—from procuring anti-Covid-19 vaccines to building a green and digital economy to expanding the EU’s geostrategic security and defense capabilities—despite the Commission’s limited tools in health and social policies or foreign and security policy and deeply divided member states in these matters. Simultaneously, von der Leyen has demanded a new vision of “A Union of Equality.” Presiding over the first gender-equal College of Commissioners, von der Leyen has embarked on fostering gender+ equality, diversity and inclusion in the European Commission and EU policy-making with unprecedented force, rendering her and her Commission a “critical actor” in this field. Despite having raised high scholarly expectations, research on (1) the EU Commission’s responses to the diversity of crises, (2) von der Leyen’s ascendance to and exercise of leadership in the European Commission and Union more broadly, and (3) scholarship on gender-inclusive substantive representation and EU policy-making during von der Leyen’s term has either remained separate, scarce or preliminary. This Roundtable will discuss – political and academic – achievements and shortcomings of the von der Leyen Commission.
Photo credit: Lucrecia Rubio Grundell
August 3, 2023
Podcast/Interview:
Women Leaders in International Law
Episode 6 of the podcast series features Her Excellency Dr Fatou Bensouda, who is currently serving as The Gambia’s High Commissioner to the UK. From 2012 to 2021 Dr Bensouda was the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) – the first woman and the first African to serve in that capacity. She had previously served as the Deputy Prosecutor of the ICC, as Senior Legal Advisor in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and in a number of roles in The Gambia, including Attorney General and Minister for Justice. She spoke to Dr Henriette Mueller, a member of the Women in Diplomacy team and an Assistant Professor of Gender, Governance and Society at NYU Abu Dhabi. They spoke about gender equality in international jurisprudence, and the obstacles women, especially women from the Global South, face as leaders in international law. They also discussed Dr Bensouda’s leadership in ensuring gender equality and diversity at the ICC, and in advancing accountability for sexual and gender-based crimes, a first for the ICC and an important step in the development of international criminal law.
Listen to the Podcast Episode 6
Project: Women in Diplomacy
LSE Foreign Policy Think Tank IDEAS!
Principal Investigator: Karen E. Smith, LSE
Project Coordinator: Marta Kozielska, LSE
Women are still underrepresented in diplomacy, foreign policy, and public policy, particularly in senior positions. This is despite a proliferation of networks advocating for women across sectors, purported support by numerous governments for increasing women’s representation in negotiations, and research illustrating the benefits of including women in negotiations.
This project at LSE IDEAS was set up to help address this issue, understand what obstacles remain, and understand how they can be overcome. The project hopes to create better access to and accelerate women’s representation in international organizations, share knowledge and tools to do so effectively and support structural change.
Dr. Fatou Bensouda, former Chief Prosecutor of the ICC
Credit: Wikipedia
May 17, 2023
Invitation/Online Talk:
The State of Women and Leadership in the European Union
Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen
Women’s leadership matters. This sentence may seem trivial and blatantly self-evident. Yet, despite a recent increase in female politicians, managers, and experts in positions of authority across different countries and levels of governance, scholarship on women’s leadership remains limited.
Drawing on my research on the European Union (EU), this talk critically engages with leadership as a concept and practice as it manifests itself across different institutional contexts and levels of governance in the European Union. First, it conceptualizes and embeds women’s leadership within EU studies. Second, it examines the main opportunities and challenges to women’s access to positions of power (positional leadership) in the European Union. Finally, it analyzes leadership performances (behavioral leadership), illustrating how women in high-level EU positions tend to perform a combination of assertive and conciliatory leadership styles that respond to highly fragmented and contested governance structures.
As women continue to face various structural hurdles in their access to power, this talk will highlight the complex dynamic between governance structures and societal developments through the prism of women and leadership.
April 25, 2023
Online Book Talk:
Women and Leadership in the European Union
European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS)
European Parliament
Speakers: Henriette Müller (NYUAD) and Ingeborg Tömmel (University of Osnabrück)
Discussant: Michelangelo Vercesi (Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI) of the NOVA University Lisbon)
Moderator: Gabriele Umbach (European University Institute)
Credit: EPRS, European Parliament
June 20, 2022
Public Book Talk:
Frauen und Führung in der Europäischen Union / Women and Leadership in the European Union
Venue: Permanent Representation of the European Commission in Germany, Berlin
Panelists: Miriam Hartlapp (Freie University Berlin), Eva Heidbreder (University of Magdeburg), Henriette Müller (NYUAD), Ingeborg Tömmel (University of Osnabrück); Discussant: Linn Selle (European Movement Germany)
Moderator: Annegret Bendiek (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik)
June 17-18, 2021
High-Level Diplomacy Workshop:
The New Diplomacy in an Age of the Emerging Global Binary
Panel: Need for Women-Led Diplomacy for a New World Order
Participants: Dame Judith MacGregor (British Diplomat), Roberta Guerrina (University of Bristol) and Henriette Müller (NYUAD)
Chair: Karen Smith (LSE)
Centre for Security, Diplomacy, and Strategy (VUB, Brussels) and IDEAS Foreign Policy Think Tank (LSE, London)
Credit: Centre for Security, Diplomacy, and Strategy (VUB, Brussels)
February 20, 2020
Interactive Workshop:
Leadership in Practice: Women in Family Business
Talk: “Women and Leadership: Mapping the Global Challenge”
Convener: Tharawat Family Business Forum, Dubai, UAE
Credit: Tharawat
January 9-11, 2020
International Conference:
Women and Leadership in the European Union
Co-conveners: Henriette Müller & Ingeborg Tömmel
University of Osnabrück, Germany
April 10-15, 2018
ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops:
The Role of Leadership in EU Politics and Policy-Making: Moving Towards Theoretical Integration and Methodological Cross-Fertilization
University of Nicosia, Cyprus
March 28-29, 2018
NYUAD Institute, Workshop:
Emirati Womenhood: Subjectivties, Creativities and Confines (convened by Dr. Laila Prager)
Paper presentation: The Politics of Women Empowerment: Female Leaders in the GCC (co-authored with Rahma Abdulkadir)
November 9, 2016
NYUAD Postdoctoral Poster Day
Photo credit: Logan W. Thurnauer; PPP template credit: Frahna Karim 2014
April 7-8, 2016
1st PUPOL International Conference:
First International Conference of the Academic Network Public and Political Leadership (PUPOL)
Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Photo credit: PUPOL
November 27-28, 2014
LEAD Conference
Projekt Zentrum Berlin der Stiftung Mercator, Berlin, Germany
Credit: Matthias Erfurt
