CFIS 25 Side Event: Academic Workshop
Conceptualizing Economic Security: A Multidisciplinary and Comparative Debate
Jointly organised by the CELIS Institute and Law & Geoeconomics.

CFIS 25 Academic Workshop Convenors
Prof. Dr Steffen Hindelang, LL.M.
Executive Director, CELIS Institute, Berlin; Professor of International Investment and Trade Law, Uppsala University, Uppsala
Assoc. Prof. Dr Sarah Bauerle Danzman
Indiana University; Editor, Law & Geoeconomics
Dr Mikael Wigell
Economic Security Forum; Editor, Law & Geoeconomics
Floor Doppen
University of Antwerp; Managing Program Associate, CELIS Institute

Paper presentations by

Prof. Dr Natália de Lima Figueiredo

Valentine Salmon

Dr Sjorre Couvreur

Dr Philip A Luck

Jochem de Kok

Denis Anwar

Assoc. Prof. Dr Marco Di Giulio

Dr Sophie Meunier


CFIS 25 Academic Workshop Sponsor



The Interdisciplinary Scholarly Workshop on Economic Security, taking place on 22nd October 2025, Berlin and hosted in conjunction with CFIS Forum 2025, is organised by the CELIS Institute and Law & Geoeconomics.

The first six months of Trump’s presidency, as well as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and continued great power competition between the US and China, promises that the conflictual, competitive and geostrategic global economic policy environment is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
As governments continue to enhance their economic resilience amid escalating geopolitical tensions, restrictive measures, such as foreign direct investment screening and export controls, are being implemented or considered to safeguard critical technologies, supply chains, and other strategic assets. At the same time, governments are increasingly using tools often associated with developmentalism and industrial policy to proactively shape critical supply chains and strategic technologies in the name of national security. While these initiatives aim to fortify economic security, they also pose significant challenges to the operation of free markets, uncertainties regarding international legal principles and institutions, and impacts on the geography and uneven distribution of trade and investment flows.
In recent years, diverse strands of literature across disciplines operating largely in isolation from each other have emerged to explain, assess, and understand these matters. This workshop invites original and thought-provoking papers from a variety of disciplines to critically and comparatively examine the conceptual boundaries of economic security and how expanding economic security concepts and policy measures influence existing legal frameworks, political dynamics, and economic freedoms.
The CFIS 2025 Academic Workshop is designed in collaboration with Law & Geoeconomics as an interdisciplinary workshop preceding the CFIS 2025. It aims to foster rigorous scholarly discussion among senior academics, postdoctoral researchers, and advanced doctoral candidates across the disciplines of law, political science, and economics. The workshop will critically examine issues at the intersection of economic security, regulatory responses to geopolitical competition, and their broader implications.
About Law & Geoeconomics
Law & Geoeconomics is a double-anonymous peer-reviewed journal that provides a platform for an emerging multi-/interdisciplinary scholarly community to rigorously analyse and debate the relationship between law and geoeconomics and its implications for world politics. More about the journal here.
About the CELIS Institute
The CELIS Institute is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan research enterprise dedicated to promoting better regulation of foreign investments in the context of security, public order, and competitiveness. It produces expert analysis and fosters a continuous trusting dialogue between policymakers, the investment community, and academics. The CELIS Institute is the leading forum for studying and debating investment screening policy.