Robert Harmsen has been Professor of Political Science at the University of Luxembourg since 2008, where he has also held the UNESCO Chair in Human Rights since 2019. Professor Harmsen currently serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences.
His research interests and publications encompass the European and International HumanRights Regimes; Comparative and International Higher Education Policy; Euroscepticism; and Europeanisation.
His most recent publication, co-edited with Anna-Lena Högenauer and Spero Simeon Z.Paraventes, is “The Benelux, Regional Groupings, and the Dynamics of European Integration: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives” (Brill, 2026).
Educated at the University of Alberta and the University of Kent at Canterbury (the latter as aCommonwealth Scholar), Professor Harmsen was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Université deMontréal and held faculty appointments at Laurentian University, McGill University, and TheQueen's University of Belfast prior to coming to Luxembourg.
Both in Belfast and in Luxembourg, he has had the great pleasure of founding and directingmaster's programmes in the area of European Integration and Governance.