Mr. Richard Giragosian is the Founding Director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC), an independent “think tank” located in Yerevan, Armenia and serves as both a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe’s Natolin Campus and Senior Expert at Yerevan State University’s Centre for European Studies (CES). He is also a contributing analyst for al Jazeera and Oxford Analytica, a UK-based global analysis and advisory firm.
Giragosian has served as a consultant for the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Union Delegation to Armenia, the International Crisis Group (ICG), the French Ministry of Defence, the U.S. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), KPMG and the London-based global risk consultancy Control Risks, as well as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the U.S. Departments of Defense and State, among others.
He was also a regular contributor to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) publications from 1999-2008, and from 2003-2010, also served as a contributing analyst for the London-based Jane’s Information Group, covering political, economic and security issues in the South Caucasus, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. From 2008-2010, he was a regular columnist for the Turkish-language international edition of Newsweek and still works with several Turkish media outlets and analytical publications.
In addition, he has written for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), The Moscow Times, Jane’s Defence Weekly, the London School of Economics (LSE) and Political Science European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) blog, the Petroleum Economist, the Hong Kong-based “Asia Times,” Jane’s Foreign Report, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, al Jazeera, the “Turkish Daily News” and the Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ), as well for the peer-reviewed journals Current History, Demokratizatsiya, the China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Oxford University’s St. Antony’s International Review (STAIR), the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, and the Harvard International Review, among others.
He has also been regularly quoted and cited by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, as well as by Le Figaro, The Economist, Newsweek, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and the BBC, AFP, Reuters and Bloomberg news agencies.
From 2002-2006, Giragosian served as a guest lecturer for the U.S. Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, NC, and has participated in various research projects for the Naval Post-Graduate School (NPS), the U.S. Navy’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS), and for the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School.
For nine years, Giragosian served as a Professional Staff Member of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the U.S. Congress. As the committee’s principal staffer for the former Soviet Union and China, he was responsible for organizing Congressional hearings, briefings and conducting analytical studies for Members of Congress and served as liaison to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). From 2000-2005, he has also worked as an analyst for Abt Associates Inc., a social science consulting firm, and was a research consultant for the New America Foundation and the Center for National Policy (CNP) in Washington.
Giragosian was twice appointed as a State Commissioner on the Virginia Governor’s Commission on Armenian Affairs, and has also served as an honorary member of the National Steering Committees of both the 1996 Clinton-Gore Reelection Campaign and the Gore 2000 Presidential Campaign.
