Email: simonpirani [at] gmail.com
Twitter: @SimonPirani1
Twitter: @SimonPirani1
Blog: peoplenature.org
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My abbreviated CV
Academic:
From 2020. Honorary Professor in the School of Modern Languages & Cultures, University of Durham.
2007-2021. Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, on the Natural Gas Research Programme. I published widely on the development of natural gas markets, and changing consumption patterns, in the former Soviet Union. I edited and contributed to two major multi-author books, and wrote or co-wrote a series of research papers on the Ukrainian gas sector and natural gas markets in the Caspian region. From 2012 to 2017 I taught courses on "Russia and the Soviet Union, 1861-2000: revolution, continuity and change" and "The Russian revolution 1917-1921", to undergraduate students in the history department of Canterbury Christ Church University.
2006. PhD from the University of Essex (History Department) for my dissertation, The changing political relationship between the Moscow workers and the Bolsheviks 1920-24.
1997. Graduated with BA (Russian Studies) degree (first-class honours) at London University (School of Slavonic and East European Studies).
Journalism:
1998-2007: I wrote mainly on energy, business and finance in the former USSR. I contributed to the financial magazines Emerging Markets, Trade Finance and Project Finance, and wrote occasionally on Russia for the Guardian, the Observer, Financial News and Economist Intelligence Unit publications. I worked as Associate Editor of Emerging Markets from 2006 to 2011. I have worked on media freedom projects in the former USSR supported by the International Federation of Journalists. I co-authored three reports, issued by the IFJ in 2004, 2005 and 2007 on the case of the murdered Ukrainian journalist Gyorgy Gongadze.
In the 1980s-90s I worked as a freelance sub-editor and journalist, travelling to Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Turkey and elsewhere. I worked as the (freelance) Editor of the Miner, the bi-monthly journal of the National Union of Mineworkers (1990-95), and before that as the Editor of the North East Miner (1988-90).
1997. Graduated with BA (Russian Studies) degree (first-class honours) at London University (School of Slavonic and East European Studies).
Journalism:
1998-2007: I wrote mainly on energy, business and finance in the former USSR. I contributed to the financial magazines Emerging Markets, Trade Finance and Project Finance, and wrote occasionally on Russia for the Guardian, the Observer, Financial News and Economist Intelligence Unit publications. I worked as Associate Editor of Emerging Markets from 2006 to 2011. I have worked on media freedom projects in the former USSR supported by the International Federation of Journalists. I co-authored three reports, issued by the IFJ in 2004, 2005 and 2007 on the case of the murdered Ukrainian journalist Gyorgy Gongadze.
In the 1980s-90s I worked as a freelance sub-editor and journalist, travelling to Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Turkey and elsewhere. I worked as the (freelance) Editor of the Miner, the bi-monthly journal of the National Union of Mineworkers (1990-95), and before that as the Editor of the North East Miner (1988-90).
