Experts & Staff

Ulrike Franke

Senior Policy Fellow

Areas of expertise

German foreign and defence policy; technology and geopolitics; UAVs/drones; artificial intelligence; military technology

Languages

French, English, German

Biography

Dr. Ulrike Franke is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). She leads ECFR’s Technology and European Power initiative. Her areas of focus include German and European security and defence, the future of warfare, and the impact of new technologies such as drones and artificial intelligence on geopolitics and warfare.

Franke has published widely on these and other topics, among others in Die ZeitFAZRUSI Whitehall PapersComparative StrategyWar on the Rocks, Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, and regularly appears as commentator in the media. She co-hosts the Sicherheitshalber Podcast, a German-language podcast on security and defence.

She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Oxford – in her PhD thesis, she studied the use of drones by western armed forces. She also holds a BA from Sciences Po Paris and a double summa cum laude MA degree from Sciences Po Paris (Affaires internationales/Sécurité internationale) and the University of St. Gallen (International Affairs and Governance).

Franke is a policy affiliate at the Governance of AI project at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute. She was also part of UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism Ben Emmerson’s research team, examining drone use in counterterrorism contexts. Prior to this she worked as a part-time research assistant at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

Publications

How Britain and the EU could cooperate on defence after Brexit

The UK will have to decide how involved it wants to be in EU defence efforts. It seems likely that the country’s aim will be to have flexible structures that allow it to plug into European foreign and defence policy where doing so is in its interests.

Second acts: How Europe can renew the transatlantic partnership

This could be the moment to build a more balanced transatlantic relationship, with Europeans showing the US where we need it to engage, and how – rather than simply waiting for cues from Washington

Why Europe needs a recovery plan for strategic autonomy

Just as they have on the economic recovery, Berlin and Paris must overcome their differences and present a courageous plan to create a Europe that takes decisive geopolitical action

Publications

Articles

How Britain and the EU could cooperate on defence after Brexit

The UK will have to decide how involved it wants to be in EU defence efforts. It seems likely that the country’s aim will be to have flexible structures that allow it to plug into European foreign and defence policy where doing so is in its interests.

Second acts: How Europe can renew the transatlantic partnership

This could be the moment to build a more balanced transatlantic relationship, with Europeans showing the US where we need it to engage, and how – rather than simply waiting for cues from Washington

Specials

Podcasts

Events

In the media