Joep Schenk is working as a post-doctoral researcher at the ERC project 'Securing Europe, fighting its enemies 1815-1914' led by Prof. Beatrice de Graaf. 

The central theme in his research has been the study of the tensions between transnational agency and national political structures. In the past five years he focussed on the question how international rivers can be both a source of conflict and of cooperation. Thanks to his training in economic history and in political history he has studied this topic from two different angles. During his PhD he unpacked the role of entrepreneurs in the transformation of the relation between the port of Rotterdam and its (German) hinterland (1870-1914) Port barons and Ruhr tycoons. The origins of an interdependent relationship between Rotterdam and the Ruhr area 1870-1914. As a post-doctoral researcher, he is tackling the question of how the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, being the first international organization in modern history, contributed to the emergence of a European security culture in the nineteenth century.

Prior to his appointment in Utrecht Joep Schenk worked as a researcher at the Dutch Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam and at the Research Institute for History and Culture at Utrecht University.

Joep Schenk's main interests are:

- History of security & water security

- Global governance and International Organizations in the 19th and 20th century

- Political-Economic history of Globalization in the 19th and 20th century

- Transnational history

- Business History