Mr. George Vlad Niculescu is originally from Bucharest, Romania, and is currently acting as the Head of Research of the European Geopolitical Forum. He is a PhD Candidate on international politics with a focus on “Western Confrontation with Russia at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Security Scenarios Planning in the Area from the Baltic Sea to the Wider Black Sea (Inter Marium)".  Mr. Niculescu holds a postgraduate diploma in European integration and international relations from the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration (NSPSPA) Bucharest, and has completed Advanced Studies at George C. Marshall Centre in Garmisch- Partenkirchen, and at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London. He has also completed training with Welcomeurope on how to prepare and manage European funded projects, as well as on how to manage the budget of a European project. From 2004 to 2010, he worked as NATO staff officer focusing on partnerships and cooperation, mostly with the countries from the Greater Black Sea Area, in areas like: security sector reform, combating terrorism, and cyber defence. Prior to that, he held various positions with a focus on defence policy and international cooperation in the Ministry of Defence of Romania (1994-2004). He has also academic experience as member of various working groups of the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes, as well as assistant professor and/or visiting lecturer at the NSPSPA, "Dimitrie Cantemir" University, NATO Studies Centre, and the PfP Training Centre from Bucharest (1997-2004). He is also affiliated with the Centre for East European and Asian Studies, Bucharest (Romania), as Director of Programs in Brussels, for whom he published articles on http://www.cseea.ro, and has been involved in various international research projects.