Mr Charles Grant is the Founding Director of the Centre for European Reform since 1996. In January 1998 he left The Economist to become the CER’s first – and so far only – director. He is the author of numerous CER reports, including Russia, China and global governance (2012), How to build a modern European Union (2013) and Relaunching the EU (2017). He works on, among other subjects, Britain’s relationship with the EU, the future of the European Union, EU foreign policy, Russia and China.

After studying modern history at Cambridge University, Charles took a diploma in French politics at Grenoble University. Returning to London, Grant joined Euromoney, the financial magazine, in 1981. He moved to The Economist in 1986, where he wrote about the City. In 1987 he began a series of articles which exposed the County NatWest-Blue Arrow scandal, which led to two Department of Trade and Industry inquiries and a long criminal trial.

Charles was a director and trustee of the British Council from 2002 to 2008. He was a member of the international advisory board of the Moscow School of Political Studies (which became the Moscow School of Civic Education) from 2002 to 2015. He is a member of the international advisory boards of the Turkish think-tank EDAM, the French think-tank Terra Nova and the Italian think-tank Aspen Italia. He is on the advisory board of the Turkish think-tank EDAM, of the French think-tank Terra Nova and of the Italian think-tank Aspen Italia. He is a member of the Council of the Ditchley Foundation, of the advisory board of the UCL European Institute, of the Scottish First Minister’s Standing Council on Europe, and of the Brexit Advisory Panel of Make UK (formerly the Engineering Employers’ Federation). He is a member of Global China Academy Board of Trustees.

Click here to return to the Trustees page