Ummu Salma Bava

Prof. Dr. Ummu Salma Bava is Professor and Jean Monnet Chair, Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. With over 35 years of teaching, research and administrative experience and is one of the leading Indian experts on the European Union, EU Member States, and India’s foreign and security policy. Her other research areas are regional integration, Indo-Pacific region, emerging powers, global governance, norms, peace and conflict studies and higher education.

She has numerous publications and the latest include “The European Union’s Relations with South Asia” in The Routledge Handbook of South Asia: Regions, Security and Connectivity (August 2023), “The European Union and Emerging Powers: Engagement, Cooperation and Contestation”, in Beyond the Crises: Potentials of the European Union in the 21st Century, Springer (Forthcoming September 2023), “Implications of the Ukraine Crisis for the European Union: Re-negotiating Security in an Interdependent World” (ICWA 2022), “EU-India Relations – The Strategic Partnership in Light of the European Union’s Global Strategy” (Springer 2021).

She was recognised as a leading expert on the European Union and awarded the Jean Monnet Chair on EU, Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution (EU-SPCR) by the European Commission (2017-2020). Bava is the only Indian to be a member of the Research Advisory Council (2013-2019) of Germany’s leading Think Tank – Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin. In February 2023, she moderated the townhall meeting of German Chancellor Scholz with a group of young Indians in New Delhi.

Bava was conferred in January 2012 with the German civilian honour- the prestigious Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz) by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. She speaks fluent English, Hindi and German.