Francesca Ghiretti was an analyst at MERICS, where her research focused on EU-China relations and economic security, the Belt and Road Initiative, and development. Before joining MERICS, she worked as a Research Fellow for Asia at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in Rome, leading a project on the Belt and Road Initiative in Italy. Previously, she also worked as a geopolitical analyst for London-based hedge fund CQS, and as assistant to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former Secretary General of NATO.
Ghiretti received a Ph.D. from King’s College London, where she was a Leverhulme Fellow at the Centre for Grand Strategy. Her thesis won the King’s College London Outstanding Thesis Award. She has published extensively on the topic of economic security, including a report summarizing policy developments in selected countries titled “From Opportunity to Risk: The Changing Economic Security Policies Vis-à-Vis China” and an article on the EU’s economic security agenda titled “Construire la sécurité économique de l’Europe.”
