Nicolas Verbeek

Nicolas Verbeek is a co-founder of insens and is based in Bonn. Since September 2024 he has been a policy advisor at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and in October 2025 he began work as a PhD researcher at Leiden University - Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. He has been spokesperson for IR-Theory and Foreign Policy Research at the Kölner Forum für Internationale Beziehungen und Sicherheitspolitik e. V. since April 2019.

Verbeek joined GIZ in December 2021 as an intern with the United Nations unit, becoming a junior policy advisor there in June 2022 and then, from November 2022 to September 2024, a junior advisor for transitional development assistance and cooperation with the World Food Programme. He advised the GIZ project PEACECOREII in April 2025. In September 2024 he was a policy officer at the Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ), and from December 2020 to October 2025 he worked as a consultant at Wise & Young.

Earlier he was a research assistant at Universiteit Leiden in 2021 and at The London School of Economics and Political Science in 2019, an intern at BCW Germany in 2020, and an account management intern and later account manager at forvision. He studied political science and media studies at The University of Bonn, spent 2017 to 2018 at Charles University, and completed an advanced M.Sc in International Relations and Diplomacy at Leiden University in 2021.