Karen E Smith is a Professor of International Relations and Head of the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Her main area of research is the ‘international relations of the European Union’, and she has written extensively on the formulation and implementation of common EU foreign policies. She has examined the EU’s pursuit of ‘ethical’ foreign policy goals such as promoting human rights and democracy, and policy-making within European states regarding genocide. For over a decade she has also analysed EU-UN relations, and more recently has extended her research to consider the role of other political and regional groups in UN diplomacy. She is now working on projects on women in foreign policy-making and diplomacy, and on the role of that emotions play in EU foreign policy-making. She teaches a course on the EU in the world, and supervises PhD students working on EU foreign relations. 

Karen E. Smith supervises doctoral studies in areas including:
EU foreign relations, EU foreign policy-making, human rights policies, genocide.