Meet the team

Prof Giles Mohan

Giles is Professor of International Development at The Open University. He has held various UK academic posts over the past 30 years and has an area specialism in West Africa.

Giles is a human geography who works on international development and he has focused on decentralisation and participation, questions of citizenship and diaspora, and migration and development.

Recent work has addressed China’s engagement with Africa supported by a series of large grants from the ESRC and GCRF, the last of which focused on Chinese oil investments.

The REDEFINE project builds on this China-Africa work to track the implications for Chinese investment in Europe. He directs the Strategic Research Area in International Development and Inclusive Innovation at The Open University.

Giles has designed and managed a range of distance learning courses aimed at undergraduate and Masters students, and latterly extended this to short, CPD courses for international development professionals in major international NGOs, donors and Southern NGOs (DFID, UNICEF, Christian Aid, Save the Children, Oxfam, World Vision). He has also worked on a range of media projects with the BBC around international development including Comic Relief documentaries, the Reith Lectures and a World Service series on the SDGs.

Natalie.Pollard

REDEFINE Project Manager. A solutions-oriented Project Manager, Natalie possesses over 10 years of experience contributing to higher education projects as an event’s organiser, trouble shooter or Project Manager, as needed. Natalie has an approachable manner which allows for an open line of communication between team members, internal stakeholders and external clients which makes her a key player in supporting the project lifespan.

Natalie has two project management qualifications, using methodologies that are implemented and adapted to the projects she’s working on, allowing for coordination to align day-to-day operations with business goals and project objectives

Natasha Sanchez

Natasha is the administrator for the REDEFINE project and brings with her a wealth of experience based on previously roles at the Open University.

Dr Weiwei Chen

Dr Weiwei Chen has a PhD in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (2021).  Her research focused on ‘The Dynamics of Chinese Private Outward Foreign Direct Investment in Ethiopia: A Comparison of the Light Manufacturing Industry and the Construction Materials Industry’.

She has rich practical experience in relevant research projects (funded by Economic Social Research Council (ESRC) on Chinese investment activities in Angola and Ethiopia (2015/19; 2019/22) and has a consistent record of delivering successful consultancy work for UN agencies, and policy advisory to the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC).

Dr Ran Hu (Ken)

Ken has a PhD in Politics from the University of York (2022). His research focuses on critical International Relations theories, grand strategy, Chinese Foreign (Economic) Policy, and the Indo-Pacific international relations. He is interested in developing an interdisciplinary and cross-regional understanding of Chinese engagements across Europe and their different political and geopolitical implications from a pan-European perspective. His PhD thesis focused on the emergence of China’s cross-regional project – Belt & Road Initiative, also known as BRI. Situating himself in a post-structural tradition, he pays attention to the underlying assumptions, discursive performances, and constitutive effects that make possible the articulation and acceptance of BRI as a global initiative for cooperation. He has taught undergraduate courses at the University of York, and worked as a research assistant on research projects on China’s pandemic diplomacy as well as the politics of Chinese investments in Europe. He previously worked for a local Chinese government.

Dr Philipp Katsinas

Philipp Katsinas is joining the project as postdoctoral researcher; His current research builds on urban and economic geography to study the social and spatial impacts of infrastructural projects on urban economies. Prior to joining the Open University, Philipp held research and teaching positions at the London School of Economics, Queen Mary University of London, Birkbeck University of London, and King’s College London. He is part of the City Collective for the journal City.

Dr Samuel Rogers

Samuel has a PhD in political economy from the University of Bristol (2019). Principally, his work focuses on post-socialist European capitalist development and the political economy of infrastructure projects. His research interests include Chinese state capital investment, Russian foreign policy, the capitalist development of illiberalism, and cultural approaches to the political economy. He has held visiting positions at the Central European University (Budapest), the Harriman Institute at Columbia University (New York), and the Higher School of Economics (Moscow). He has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the Universities of Bristol and the West of England.

Dr Filippo Boni

Dr Filippo Boni is Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at The Open University, and Research Fellow at REDEFINE.

His research interests concern the politics of Chinese investments in South Asia and Europe, as well as the International Relations of South Asia, with a particular focus on the bilateral ties between Pakistan and China and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Filippo is the author of Sino-Pakistani Relations. Politics, Military and Regional Dynamics and the Co-editor of the academic journal Asia Maior. He was an academic consultant on the OU/BBC co-production 'Trump takes on the World'.

Dr Lorena Lombardozzi

Lecturer in Economics, REDEFINE FELLOW

Dr Florian Schäfer

Florian is a political economist working on the intersection between global production networks and the political economy of industrial policy. Florian was warded a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London, in 2017 and has held teaching positions at the London School of Economics, SOAS, and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. His work focuses on foreign direct investment, value chain governance, infrastructure, manufacturing, and the development of labour regimes. He has been researching Chinese investment into infrastructure and manufacturing firms since 2018, when he worked on the ESRC-DFID-financed Industrial Development, Construction and Employment in Africa (IDCEA) project at SOAS, University of London."

Dr Yameng Zhang

Yameng is an Assistant Professor at International Business School Suzhou, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China. Previously, Yameng obtained her PhD. degree from Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow in 2018. Her research interests lie at the nexus of strategic management and international business (IB), exploring the impacts of institutions and stakeholder network on firms' strategies. In particular, Yameng has studies the role of international sister cities since 2018. Now two of her studies on sister city have been published in good-quality international journals in Business & Management fields, and one of them was finalized as "That's Interesting!" Award from Academy of International Business Annual Meeting in 2019.

Yameng has successfully obtained two projects related international sister cities, funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China including joining the REDEFINE project as a visiting fellow, to conduct case studies of Manchester-Wuhan sister city relation, exploring the topics of how international sister cities influence sustainable development of Chinese FDI.