Dr Cleo Davies

Cleo joined Forward College in September 2024 and is teaching the courses Comparative Politics and International Political Economy at the Paris Campus. 

She obtained a PhD in Politics from the University of Edinburgh, where she also taught for eight and a half years on a range of courses in the School of Social and Political Science. Cleo’s expertise lies in European politics, EU decision-making, and the role of international organisations in transnational governance, as well as UK-EU relations. Before joining Forward, she also worked as a Senior Research fellow on projects ‘Negotiating the Future’ and ‘Living with the Neighbours‘ as part of the UK in a Changing Europe programme. 

Cleo takes a keen interest in knowledge exchange activities between researchers and decision-makers and regularly produces policy-relevant output and presents research to stakeholders and decision-makers. Before academia, she worked for over five years in European politics and policy making in Brussels. 

• European politics
• EU decision-making 
• UK-EU relations in a comparative perspective
• The role of international organisations in transnational governance

• Comparative Politics
• International Political Economy 

• Recent publications

Davies, C. . (2025) “Drifting apart: Family law matters and the ‘Politics of Brexit’”, Border Crossing. London, UK, 15(3), pp. 83–99. doi: 10.33182/bc.v15i3.2925.

Report: The Starmer Government and Europe: Resetting Relations in Turbulent Times. Co-authored chapters on ‘The European Union’, ‘The United Kingdom’ and ‘France’, 28 May 2025.

Cleo Davies and Monika Brusenbauch Meislová, Europe’s leaders converge in Tirana for the sixth EPC summit, analysis for the UK in a Changing Europe, 14 May 2025.

Davies, C. (2025). ‘The need to be seen to be taking action’: how legitimacy drives the European Commission’s behaviour‘. Journal of European Integration, 1–21. 

Davies, C. and  Kassim, H. (2024) ‘Bringing the EU Back In: Rethinking the United Kingdom’s Post-Brexit Bilateralism’. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies. 

Cleo Davies and Hussein Kassim. Report: ‘UK-UK: What next?’, July 2024, UK in a Changing Europe, 

Cleo Davies and Hussein Kassim. Report from the Living with the Neighbours Observatory: The UK and its neighbours: views across Europe, June 2024, UK in a Changing Europe

Davies C. and Kassim, H. How does the EU organise and manage its relationship with the UK post-Brexit?, October 2023, Explainer for UK in a Changing Europe

Davies, C. (2023) ‘The impact of Brexit: Polity, politics, policy’, Journal of European Integration, 45:6, 963-969

Christina Boswell, Kat Smith and Cleo Davies. Rethinking Policy Impact: Promoting Ethical and Effective Policy Engagement in the Higher Education Sector, October 2022

Regulation After Brexit Revisited, Hussein Kassim, Cleo Davies, Sean Ennis, and Andrew Jordan (eds.), October 2022

• Recent presentations

Paper presenter ‘The UK in Europe: Prospects of Resetting Relations with the EU and Bilateral Partnerships’, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Haus Berlin, 26th and 27th June 2025

Panel speaker Rencontres d’été GIS-Eurolab, Lille, 27-28 June 2024: ‘Future Possibilities for the UK-EU relationship’, Science-Po Lille

Panel speaker at the two-day workshop ‘The UK’s relationship with central Europe in times of political change’, 25-26 April 2024, Masaryk University, Brno

‘National EU Coordination in the UK: from member state to third country’, ECPR Standing Group on the EU, Universidade NOVA, Lisbon, June 2024, with Hussein Kassim

Presentation to the Scottish Government’s International School. ‘The EU’s approach to the UK: organization and future developments’, January 2024

• Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh SCOTLAND-EUROPE INITIATIVE series of workshops
• Member of The Academic Association for European Studies Association (UACES) 
• Member of the Europa Institute, University of Edinburgh 
• Member of the European Consortium for Political Research