Dr Saroj Kumar Aryal is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw, where he also earned his PhD in International Relations with Distinction in 2024. His research focuses on the South Asian Regional Security Complex, the geopolitics of small states, great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, and India’s foreign policy. He is Principal Investigator on an OPUS 27 grant examining South Korea’s defence diplomacy in Europe, and a team member on a Horizon Europe project on EU enlargement, alongside prior roles as Co-Investigator and Co-Coordinator on major national and European-funded research initiatives.
Dr Aryal has authored and co-authored more than forty peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Geopolitics, The International Spectator, and the Journal of Asian and African Studies, and has published or contracted six monographs with Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and Oxford University Press. He serves as book series editor for Routledge’s China-India and the Small States: Changing Geopolitics of South Asia, and has held visiting fellowships at Australian National University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Heidelberg University. His contributions have been recognised with Poland’s Outstanding Young Scientist Fellowship (2025) and Nepal’s „40 under 40” award (2026).
Research Interests: Regional Security Complex of South Asia, India’s Foreign Policy, Small State in International Relations, South Asian Geopolitics.
