Benjamin Houghton is an H.H. Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah Doctoral Fellow at the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University. Benjamin's research focuses on the interaction between great powers and Persian Gulf states, particularly China. He is the co-editor (with Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Jia Liu) of the forthcoming volume China Moves West: The Evolving Strategies of the Belt and Road Initiative. Further to this, Benjamin has previously been published in Asian Affairs, Al-Monitor, and Orient.

Kasia A Houghton is an ESRC-funded doctoral researcher of Russian intervention in the Syrian conflict at the University of St Andrews, where she is a fellow of the Centre for Syrian Studies, MECACS, and the Centre for Global Law and Governance. She also works as a researcher on the Global Fragmentations project with the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep).