Chris Goodenough

Chris Goodenough is Programme Manager in RUSI’s Terrorism and Conflict Research Group, where he leads the programme management function across the Group’s portfolio of research, capacity-building and implementation projects. His work spans programmes managed from RUSI’s headquarters in London and its international offices in Brussels and Nairobi. 

Chris was Programme Manager for STRIVE Afghanistan, a €3 million EU-funded programme delivering youth mentorship, strategic communications, journalist training and gender-focused research. His wider project work includes delivering 11 trainings as part of the EU Thematic Training on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (2019-2025); research on the Wagner Group and Russia’s Presence in Africa and the Middle East, examining the group’s expansion as a hybrid mercenary-paramilitary actor and its role in advancing Russian foreign policy; Climate Change, Labour Migration, and Violent Extremism Recruitment, which explored links between climate-driven migration and radicalisation vulnerability in Tajikistan; and the ongoing UK Security in a Post-Aid World project, which examines what recent reductions in aid budgets mean for UK security and strategic interests. 

Chris holds a BA (Hons) in Politics and International Studies from the University of Exeter, including one year of study at University College Utrecht in the Netherlands, and is completing a part-time MA at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. His postgraduate studies include work on impact evaluation and development policy, and using participatory action research to inquire into community-based responses to organised crime. 

Prior to joining RUSI, Chris undertook research and convening work in partnership with the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, on topics including violent extremism, European and Russian geopolitics, and the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. 

His interests include the development-aid-security nexus, the political economy of violence and conflict, and community responses to insecurity, with a particular geographic focus on Central Asia and the MENA region.