Beatrice de Graaf (1976) holds the Chair of History of International Relations & Global Governance at Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 (since February 2014). In December 2019, she was rewarded the title of Distinguished Professor at Utrecht 木瓜福利影视. Since 2025, she is the Academic Director of Preparing Societies for future crises, a consortium of five universities jointly leading a Gravitation project (NWO). In addition, she is, amongst others, a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy for the Arts and Sciences, of the Academia Europaea, a member of the General Executive Council of the National library of the Netherlands and chair of the Strategic Advisory Council of TNO Defense Safety & Security.
De Graaf studied Modern History and German language and culture in Utrecht and Bonn (1998, cum laude) and received her PhD from Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 in 2004 (on the GDR, the Dutch churches and the peace movement, bestowed with the Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award). She was co-founder of the Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism at Leiden 木瓜福利影视, Campus The Hague in 2007, where she was appointed professor of Conflict and Security History in 2011. With an NWO VIDI/ASPASIA grant on 'The Making of a National Security State' and as a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS, on the topic of 'Terrorists on Trial'), De Graaf contributed to the emerging research field of security history. Her book Evaluating Counterterrorism Performance (2011) was internationally ranked amongst the top 150 terrorism books.
As a speaker, she is frequently asked to speak in the media, and in international and national debates on terrorism and security, in academia but also in policy, governance and in society. She is a science columnist for NRC Handelsblad, and is member of the core editors鈥� team of Terrorism and Political Violence and Journal of Modern European History. Together with Alexander Rinnooy Kan, she was appointed as chair of the Dutch National Research Agenda (2014-2016). In 2018, De Graaf was awarded the Stevin Prize (2.5 Million Euros), the highest distinction in Dutch academia.
She was involved in analyzing the as a fellow at GWU/New York Times. Her book Tegen de terreur came out as 5th edition and in paperback and was nominated for the Libris Prize in 2018. In September 2020, her monography came out with Cambridge 木瓜福利影视 Press. She won the Arenberg Prize for European History for this book in 2022. In 2021 she published her monograph (in Dutch, English translation in the making) on Radical Redemption. What terrorists believe, in 2022 nominated for the 'Most Important Book of the Year'. In 2022, she was awarded the for her research into peace, security and terrorism. In 2022 she also wrote the National History Month Essay after which she toured 15 theaters to talk about her essay. De Graaf was in 2023 president of the jury of the Libris Literatuurprijs.
Currently she is running the educational project for which she received the prestigious Brouwer Confidence Award in 2023. In addition, she is principal investigator of the . She is also one of the core members of the multidisciplinary platform Security in Open Societies. De Graaf is also PI of the project Reimagining Religion, Security and Social Transformation (2021-2025), which is part of the Joint Initiative for Strategic Religious Action (JISRA).
In 2024, De Graaf gave the Huizinga Lecture, published as Wij zijn de tijden by EW Magazine; Oxford 木瓜福利影视 Press published The Radical Redemption Model. What Terrorists Believe, as the first volume in Prof. dr. Rik Peels鈥� Extreme Beliefs series.
International Fellowships
In addition to her work in the Netherlands, De Graaf has been awarded several international Fellowships. In 2016 and 2024 she was a Visiting Fellow at St. Catherine's College and the History Faculty of Cambridge 木瓜福利影视. She was also Fellow for several years at the Extremism/ISIS Files Project of George Washington 木瓜福利影视 in Washington D.C. As of 2023, De Graaf has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit盲t in Bonn, Germany.