Our History

The prelude of the Illicit Trade Group dates back to 2015, when Timothy Wittig and Francesco Giumelli decided to join forces to run a Summer School on Illicit Trade. The Faculty of Arts is responsible for supporting their idea and the University of Groningen for giving them a start-up grant to organize the first edition in 2016. The idea came from the similar research experiences on sanctions, wildlife trafficking and countering the financing of terrorism. The first edition was a pilot, but a very successful one so it was easy to decide to continue. The enthusiasm at the end of the course was every year stronger. Students from five continents, from both the university and practice, joined a very diverse team of instructors that was also composed by academics and practitioners.

The increasing number of students demonstrated that Illicit Trade was a topic of great interests for students at the intersection of security and international political economy. Courses on Illicit Trade to be added to the BA and the MA in International Relations and, once again, they were very well received by students, researchers and practitioners. At the same time, the Faculty of Law had started an MA programme in Global Criminal Law, which provides a great overview of several themes and topics that were covered during the summer school. This is when Pim Geelhoed joined the school, becoming an essential member of the team.

After three very successful editions of the summer school on Illicit Trade, Francesco and Pim decided to extend the scope of action and create an interfaculty platform that could give visibility and create a forum for discussion for faculty and staff at the RUG that are doing research on Illicit Trade. Thanks to the irreplaceable support from several interns coordinated by Chiara Magrelli, the Illicit Trade Group became a reality on November 4, 2020.