Professor Julie Smith (Baroness Smith of Newnham) is Professor of European Politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at Cambridge University.

A Fellow and Director of Studies in Politics at Robinson College, from 2013 to 2019 she was the Director of the European Centre at POLIS. From 2016 until 2022 she was Co-Director of the MSt in International Relations, the two-year part-time Masters programme co-organised by POLIS and the University’s Institute for Continuing Education. She is currently Chair of Examiners for Part of the History and Politics Tripos and Co-convenor of the bespoke Evidence and Argument paper.

An expert in European politics, Julie was Head of the European Programme at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) from 1999 until 2003. She has been a member of the House of Lords since 2014 and was a member of the Lords’ International Relations Committee from its creation in 2016 until 2021. Julie read PPE at Brasenose College, Oxford, and took both her MPhil and DPhil in Politics at St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

She was a Hanseatic Scholar in Hamburg and prior to coming to the Centre of International Studies in Cambridge in 1997, Julie taught in the International Relations and European Studies Department of the Central European University in Budapest.

Julie's main academic interests are in the history and politics of the EU. Her research focuses in particular on the UK's relations with the EU and democracy in Europe, including referendums, elections to the European Parliament, and the role of the European and national parliaments in the EU. Recently, her research interest have beyond to shift towards the UK’s bilateral relations with a particular focus on British-German relations. Early findings have been published in German Politics.

She has been involved in many collaborative projects on democracy and EU institutions – mostly recently in Reconnect, a Horizon 2020 project focusing on democracy and the rule of law, the results of which will be published with Oxford University Press in early 2026.

She was the Founding Editor of the Edward Elgar Series on New Horizons in European Politics (2011-17).

Her current research focuses on the UK’s bilateral relations with Germany and the UK’s wider relations with the EU. A second strand of research centres on democracy and the role of parliaments in British and European politics.