Sophie Buckingham is a Research Manager at VVA Economics & Policy.

She has a thorough and proven knowledge of EU law and policies, specialising at VVA in legal analysis and social policy work. Examples of her work include projects on compliance of national legislative measures implementing the Energy Efficiency Directive (DG ENER), as well as a Horizon 2020 project addressing the challenge of migrant integration through ICT-enabled solutions. She is the day-to-day lead on a legal research project for DG FISMA on the differences between national bank insolvency regimes and their potential for harmonisation.

Before joining VVA, Sophie gained experience in the public and NGO sectors through her work in the Parliamentary Affairs Division of the European External Action Service (EEAS) and at Ashoka, an NGO ranked in 2018 among the top five most influential NGOs globally for its work with systems-changing social entrepreneurs. Here she worked on their migration and integration accelerator programme, jointly organising the EU Migration Policy Summit in Brussels, an event bringing together 150 social entrepreneurs and policymakers to share best practices and encourage co-creation of new policy initiatives surrounding migration and integration challenges.

Having studied European Legal Studies for her Bachelors, Sophie also holds an MA in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges. She has published an article in Germany’s Diplomatisches Magazin on the phenomenon of legal borrowing in Turkey.

Sophie speaks fluent English and French and has basic German knowledge. In her free time, she enjoys baking, sports (especially tennis) and travelling.