Francesco Schiavi is a Middle East international relations specialist focused on security, defense, and governance in the Levant and the Gulf. He is a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute of Switzerland (MEIS) and a contributor to many international outlets, including Al-Monitor and the NATO Defense College Foundation. For five years, he has been a researcher for the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), and since 2017, he coordinated the Middle East section of the Italian magazine Pandora. Between 2023 and 2024, he has served as an advisor to the Steering Committee for the EuroMeSco Annual Conference, organized by the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) in Barcelona in cooperation with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.