SERGE STROOBANTS

Founder & Executive Director

Serge Stroobants is the Founder & Executive Director of BANTS. He is a proud Belgian, European, and Atlanticist. Stroobants is a senior academic specialist on security and defense, global terrorism, radicalization, foresight, global risk analysis and conflict-management. Stroobants is married, has two children, and speaks English, French, Dutch, and German. In his spare time, rugby is his passion and rugby values are his leitmotiv in life.

Serge Stroobants served for 30 years with the Belgian Military at all strategic and operational levels, including in the roles of the Military Assistant to the Belgian Military Representative to the NATO Military Committee, at several NATO Forces Headquarters, at the French-German Brigade, and at the Eurocorps. Stroobants also served in various multicultural and multinational environments including during his deployment to the Balkans for an aggregated period of more than two years. In addition, Stroobants had deployments to Rwanda, Benin, and the Cabo Verde Islands. Stroobants also participated in various capacity-building exercises in international settings such as the NATO Response Force and EU Battlegroup trainings.

Serge Stroobants holds master’s degrees in Military and Social Sciences (Royal Belgian Military Academy, 1993), Political Sciences (Free University of Brussels, 2004), International Relations (Université Jean Moulin-Lyon III, 2011), Global Risk Analysis and Crisis Management (Vesalius College, 2015), and is a graduate of the Advanced General Staff Course at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr (2010).

Serge Stroobants is a visiting Professor of International Relations at the Riga Graduate School of Law and Blanquerna University in Barcelona, teaching courses on peace and security and on global terrorism and radicalization. Stroobants is a senior visiting fellow at the Irish College of the KU Leuven and the Global Governance Institute and is a senior associate at the European Institute for Asian Studies and the Global Institute for Cybersecurity Technologies. Stroobants is an alumnus of the International Visitors Leadership Program of the US State Department.

Serge Stroobants served as an expert for the Parliamentary Commissions on the impact of terrorism both in France after the 13 November 2015 Paris attacks and in Belgium after the 22 March 2016 Brussels attacks. Stroobants is also involved in the support of the victims of terrorist acts.

Serge Stroobants has been the European Representative for the Institute for Economics and Peace since 2014. In 2018, Stroobants set up the Brussels office for IEP and he became the Director Europe, Middle East and North Africa. Since then, Stroobants has successfully led and developed the IEP European Regional Office. Serge Stroobants is also a member of the Academic Board of the World Humanitarian Forum.