Arturo Varvelli is the Head of the Rome Office and Senior Policy Fellow for the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), and a Senior Associate Fellow at ISPI. He also works as a scholar on topics such as Italian-Libyan relations, Libyan domestic and foreign politics, Italian foreign policy in the Middle East and Mediterranean region, Jihadist groups in North Africa, having published both books and articles on these subjects. Dr Varvelli is also a lecturer of History and Institutions of the Middle East at IULM University in Milan and Visiting Fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy (EFD) in Brussels. In 2006, he completed a Ph.D. in International History at the University of Milan, where he worked as a lecturer in History of International Relations. In 2007, he was a post-Ph.D. fellow at the CRT Foundation in Turin.
He has served on research projects commissioned by the research office of the Italian Chamber of Representatives and Senate, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as by European Parliament and Commission. In 2015, he was chosen by the U.S. State Department to take part in the “International Visitor Leadership Program". Varvelli is also regularly interviewed on foreign affairs issues by domestic as well as international networks outlets.