In this episode of Figure It, economic historian Dr Alexander Apostolides of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance talks to Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen about how US tariffs could affect Cyprus in ways that policymakers might not be expecting. He also gives some advice on what policymakers could be doing to ensure resilience in […]

The post Figure It – Episode 18: US tariffs might hurt Cyprus in unexpected ways (25/4/2025) first appeared on Island Talks.

In this episode Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Prof Amanda Perry-Kessaris of Law at Kent Law School to discuss a workshop last November with the Cyprus Peace and Dialogue Centre (CPDC). Funded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association the workshop ran a small test on two concepts: citizens’ assemblies and interspecies councils.

The post Figure It – Episode 17: Opening up Cyprob imaginations with an interspecies council (18/2/2025) first appeared on Island Talks.

In this episode Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to process facilitator and peacebuilding practitioner Michelle Parlevliet of REOS Partners about the transforming effects of asking a broad cross-section of Cypriots with differing views to take the time to imagine four plausible but very different scenarios for the future of Cyprus. The Cyprus Futures project was the […]

The post Figure It – Episode 16: Scenarios for the future of Cyprus (4/11/2024) first appeared on Island Talks.

Cyprus is more innovative than you think. In this episode Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Cyprus Seeds Managing Director Maria Georgiadou, and Innovation Programme Manager Margarita Kyprianou about the wide sectoral range of innovators in universities, research institutions, and Centres of Excellence in the Republic of Cyprus who have been supported by Cyprus […]

The post Figure It – Episode 15: from research to market with Cyprus Seeds (16/10/2024) first appeared on Island Talks.

In this 14th episode of Figure It, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Mete Hatay, Senior Research Consultant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Cyprus Centre, about the delicate question of the number of people who live in northern Cyprus. There has been no census since 2011, when the population (de jure) was counted […]

The post Figure It – Episode 14: How big is the population of northern Cyprus? (6/9/2024) first appeared on Island Talks.

In this 13th episode of Figure It  Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to James Ker-Lindsay, Visiting Professor at the University of Kent, Research Associate at LSE and producer of the popular conflict/international relations YouTube channel called “Prof James Ker-Lindsay”, to discuss some little known facts about UNFICYP – the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus that […]

The post Figure It – Episode 13: Things you didn’t know about UNFICYP (7/3/2024) first appeared on Island Talks.

In this 12th episode of Figure It and the third in a series of episodes devoted to energy, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Peter Stevenson, East Mediterranean Editor at the specialist oil and gas publication, Middle East Economic Survey (MEES). They discuss the announcement made on 15 February by the Italian oil and gas company, […]

The post Figure It – Episode 12 (Energy Series 3) What does ENI’s latest gas discovery offshore Cyprus actually mean? (22/2/2024) first appeared on Island Talks.

In this 11th episode of Figure It and the second in a series of episodes devoted to energy, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Ahmet Sözen, a Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) and a veritable ‘ideas factory’ when it comes to new approaches to the Cyprus problem. Prof Sözen […]

The post Figure It – Episode 11 (Energy Series 2): East Med Energy and the Cyprus problem: why it is in the EU’s strategic security interests to get involved (8/2/2024) first appeared on Island Talks.

In this episode of Figure It and the first in a series of episodes devoted to energy, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen and analyst Andromachi Sophocleous put on their professional energy hats to analyse the regional energy workshop of oil and gas companies on 29-30 May.

The post Figure It – Episode 10 (Energy Series 1): What happened at the government’s regional energy gathering on 29-30 May? (5/6/2023) first appeared on Island Talks.

In this episode of Figure It, Sapienta Economics Director Fiona Mullen talks to Dr Mustafa Besim, Professor of Economics at Eastern Mediterranean University and Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics, about the economy of northern Cyprus, in particular the latest economic and financial protocol worth around 240 million euro signed between the Turkish Cypriot administration and Turkey. What are the protocol’s strengths, what are its weaknesses and what should be the priority for Turkish Cypriot economic policy?   

The post Figure It – Episode 9: Mustafa Besim unpacks Turkey’s economic protocol with the Turkish Cypriots (10/6/2022) first appeared on Island Talks.