Profile
Academic background
Helen received her first-class BSc Honours degree in Linguistic (French and German) and International Relations at the University of Surrey (UK). She followed this with a two-year contract teaching English to (reluctant) trainee French engineers in northern France before returning to the UK to complete an MSc in European Management at the Cranfield School of Management. She then experimented with a short but instructive period employed as an international marketing executive for the UK IT company ICL. That took her all around Europe exploring the telecommunications markets before she was tempted back into the university sector, first as an administrator (running study abroad programmes) and then into her first academic post as Lecturer at Aston University where she completed, part-time, her PhD in political science (on the subject of political leadership in the case of former European Commission President, Jacques Delors).
In 2010, Helen was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French government for her services to French culture and language. In 2017 she received the University of Kent’s Innovation in Academia (Arts and Culture) prize, and between 2012 and 2018 she chaired UACES – the UK’s academic association for contemporary European Studies – through interesting times, including Brexit. Between 2013 and 2016 she used her Jean Monnet Chair in European integration, funded by the European Commission, to support her research, teaching and public information activities.
Research
Current research and collaborations
Following the success of her 2011 book Contemporary France, Helen will in 2025 publish her second comprehensive volume on France (Understanding France, Bristol University Press). In 2020, she edited (and contributed to) a volume bringing together cutting-edge research into French politics following the election of President Macron (Bloomsbury, Developments in French Politics 6). She currently collaborates with leading international scholar Professor Pauline Schnapper of the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris on the state of the Franco-British relationship after Brexit, including contributions to the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO); and with scholar of diplomacy Dr Lesley Masters, she researches the pedagogy of diplomacy in the UK.
Between 2016 and 2019 Helen led two ESRC-funded research projects into the UK’s departure from the EU, aka Brexit. One looked at the multi-stakeholder negotiations that characterised Brexit, organising a number of 'Brexit cafés' to bring those stakeholders together in low-risk situations. The other project invited sixth-form school pupils in the Midlands and the southeast of England to simulate real-world, post-Brexit decisions on EU citizenship and freedom of movement.
Current PhD / research supervisions
Helen has supervised several PhD students to successful completion across a broad range of subject areas. She is currently co-supervising students in the topics of the Europeanisation of Northern Ireland and political identity; first lady diplomacy in Ukraine; policy learning in times of crisis (Australia, UK and Covid); the role of metropolitan innovation ecosystems as diplomatic actors; and racism and public policy in France and the UK. She has examined numerous PhDs around the world.