James Black

James Black is Assistant Director of the Defence and Security Research Group at RAND Europe. He is currently leading several studies of emerging insights and lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War on behalf of NATO governments and militaries. He is also European Lead of the RAND Space Enterprise Initiative (RSEI), a global hub for RAND’s 75 years of space-related research. Having led a wide range of studies on space security and related topics, James has worked for both the Ministry of Defence and UK Space Agency on developing space strategy, as well as directly informing recent United Nations negotiations on preventing threats to space systems. Prior to joining RAND, he worked in the UK Parliament.