School of Social and Political Science

Dr Cleo Davies

Teaching

Cleo Davies
cleo.davies@ed.ac.uk
https://twitter.com/CleoDavies2/
Edinburgh
UK

Research interests

British politics research European Union Studies Science, knowledge and policy

UK-EU relationship, Brexit, European Institutions, International Organisations, Research-policy interface, The history and politics of European financial market supervision and regulation

Latest blogs 

The UK Finally Joins Horizon Europe: Better late than never (September 2023), DCU Brexit Institute

UK-EU relations being left to committees? (October 2023), UK in a Changing Europe, with Jannike Wachowiak

What strategy for the UK’s bilaterals with EU member states? (April 2023), Encompass Online Magazine, with Professor Hussein Kassim

Latest Reports

UK-EU Relations Tracker Q3 - the UK in a Changing Europe UK-EU Relations Tracker July to September 2023 (October 2023), with Jannike Wachowiak

Rethinking Policy Impact: Promoting Ethical and Effective Policy Engagement in the Higher Education Sector (October 2022) with Professor Christina Boswell and Professor Kat Smith.

Regulation after Brexit Revisited (October 2022). Edited with Professor Hussein Kassim. Collaborative undertaking by ‘Negotiating the Future’, the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia, and Brexit & Environment. Follow-up to Regulation after Brexit first report published in February 2021.

Selected Academic Papers

Davies, C. (2023) The Impact of Brexit: polity, politics, policy, Journal of European Integration, 45:6, 963-969 (open access).

Cleo Davies and Hussein Kassim, UK Bilaterals with EU member states since Brexit​ April 2023 Working Document.

Davies. C (2023) 'Negotiating the future: Understanding the absence of an agreement on civil justice cooperation in family law', UKICE working paper 04/2023.

Davies, C and Kassim, H (2022) 'Institutions and Governance of the EU-UK Relationship' UKICE working paper (May 2022).

Background

I have been teaching in the School of Social and Political Science since January 2016. Much of the research work I do is at the interface of research and policy - see 'Rethinking Policy Impact' project for instance. I am also Senior Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. Before coming to do a PhD at Edinburgh University, I worked in politics and policy making at European level for five and a half years, first as a political advisor to the Secretary General and President of a European Political Group and then as a policy officer representing local and regional authorities at European level.

Qualifications

PhD in Politics (2020) University of Edinburgh: “Instrumentalism, Power Maximisation, or Legitimation? Understanding the European Commission’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis, 2008-10".  

  • Provides a theoretical framework to investigate different motivations guiding action: power-maximization concerns to increase influence, instrumental concerns to provide a solution to the problem revealed by the crisis, and legitimacy concerns to conform to perceived expectations. 
  • Empirically, it is an investigation of organizational decision-making in a context of crises, an analysis of the decision-making process that led to the creation of the three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) of financial activities after the 2007 financial crisis in the EU. 

Master’s Degree in European and International Studies (2008-2010) Institute for European Studies, University Paris Vincennes - Paris 8. Dissertation: The Public-private partnership for the re-conversion of the London Olympic Village. 

Degree in History (2008), University Denis Diderot Paris 7.  

Awards

  • 2016-2018 Politics and International Relations Career Development PhD Scholarship 
  • 2018 UACES funding for the research trip to the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) at the EUI  

Research experience

  • Senior Research Fellow working on the EU-UK relations and Brexit negotiation since August 2020 (University of Warwick)
  • 'Rethinking Policy Impact', led by Professor Christina Boswell (2022), 
  • 'Defining co-production' led by Dr Justyna Bandola-Gill (Spring 2020), 
  • 'Evaluating academic engagement with UK legislatures: Exchanging knowledge on knowledge exchange', led by Dr Marc Geddes at the University of Edinburgh (July-December 2019) 
  • What Works Scotland, University of Edinburgh (July -December 2016)

Guest Lecturer, Senior Tutor and Tutor

  • Senior Tutor on five different courses in the Politics & IR and Social Policy departments (2017-2023)
  • Tutor on courses in the School of Social and Political Science (2016-2013)

Membership 

  • Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 
  • Member of the Europa Institute, University of Edinburgh
  • Member of SKAPE, the Center for science, knowledge and policy, University of Edinburgh
  • Member of UACES, The academic association for contemporary European Studies
  • Member of the FEPS Young Academic Network

Skills

  • Organizing seminars and working groups and co-organizing large conferences
  • Policy consultation and advocacy
  • Drafting policy positions, discussion papers and practitioners' guides
  • Languages: bilingual in English and French, German (fluent), Spanish (elementary)

Works within