Jana holds a PhD in Political Science from Lund University, where her doctoral thesis focused on the evolution of contemporary civil defence policies in Sweden and the wider Nordic-Baltic region. She has been particularly interested in the relationship between national resilience efforts and international frameworks such as the NB8 cooperation format, NATO, and the European Union, highlighting the growing significance of cross-border collaboration in what has traditionally been a nationally defined policy area.
Drawing on extensive regional expertise and a comparative research approach, Jana’s research contributes to the rapidly evolving field of civil defence and resilience studies, catalysed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and further accelerated by the war in Ukraine. Through her engagement with civil defence policies and practices in the Baltic Sea Region states, she continues to identify both national variations and emerging best practices to inform policy developments and enhance regional resilience. She has published on these topics in several academic outlets and remains committed to producing empirically grounded, policy-relevant research that bridges the gap between scholarship and practice.
In addition to her position at the PDI, she is also affiliated with the Department of Political Science at Lund University and with the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences.