Axel Berkofsky is Professor at the University of Pavia and Co-Head of Asia Center at ISPI. Berkofsky is also a regular contributor to the Zurich-based International Security Network (ISN), the Asia Times, as well as to other newspapers, journals and magazines on Asian politics and security, EU-Asia relations, Japanese domestic and foreign, Chinese foreign policies and North Korea.

Axel was awarded his Ph.D. in Asian Studies/Political Science from the University of Hamburg in 2002 and has previously worked as Senior Policy Analyst, Associate Policy Analyst, and as Advisor on Asian Affairs at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC), as well as Research Fellow at the European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS) in Brussels.

In Japan, he worked as Research Associate at the Tokyo-based German Institute for Japanese Studies and as a freelance journalist for the Tokyo-based Asahi Evening News and Daily Yomiuri Shimbun. He has published more than 200 articles altogether, papers and essays in newspapers, journals and magazines across Europe, Asia and the US.