2025 was for book writing, travel, and reassessing life goals. Here is for more blog post writing in 2026 and new projects! 2026 goals are here to stay.
2025 has been a difficult year and I am happy for it to be over. I had a lot of family commitments, emergencies, travel, and caring responsibilities, and while it was enriching in more ways than one it meant that I did not have much time for the blog. I hope this will change in 2026 as I plan to do the 26 for 2026 challenge – it means 26 posts in 2026, at least fortnightly. This is the beginning of this challenge, post number 1!
What am I happy to have achieved in 2025? While many of my achievements were non-academic, I had two job interviews at places where I’d love to work at (one abroad), I planned and organised a webinar on consultancy at the British Academy, and I finished my book on how the securitisation of terrorism has changed Russian politics (you can find it here). I am proud to have finished the book despite the difficult year I’ve had and I will do a series of post about my experience with writing the book, from the proposal to the finishing touches. There will be tips of course.
What are the plans for 2026? I am in an active search for a job, so I will be focusing on that. My book should be out in March, and I will look at having a launching event – maybe with one of BISA’s working groups or the British Academy. I’ve also been thinking of an outline for a larger research project on Russian security. I’d love to run some stats and maybe build a working model. With the latest advances in AI more and more places make their data publicly available, which means two things: many spaces are drowning in data nobody analyses and more journals in politics are interested in data driven publications. So it might be a win win.
I will update this post with a list of 2025 publications and talks and events that are available online. Please reach out via the Telegram channel if you’d like to be featured on the blog or send me a book for review.