Elena Escalante-Block is currently HDR Convenor and Braithwaite Research Fellow at RegNet, the Australian National University. Her current research examines the relationship between communication, regulatory governance, and public trust, with a particular focus on what happens when tech-related competition cases become the subject of public debate and politicisation. She analyses how politicisation shapes citizens’ support for regulatory authorities and policy actions surrounding Big Tech regulation. On top of competition policy, she has also analysed and examined the politicisation of international trade agreements.

She previously obtained a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at ARENA, University of Oslo, funded by the European Commission under Horizon Europe. She was also awarded the University Research Fund at the University of Antwerp. She completed her PhD at Sciences Po Paris, where she was also a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow within PLATO, an Innovative Training Network. Her doctoral research analysed how state aid cases function as trigger moments in processes of politicisation and depoliticisation, and how these dynamics affect the legitimation and delegitimation of the European Union. She holds a Master of Research from Macquarie University, a Master of International Relations from the University of Sydney, and a combined Bachelor of Journalism and International Relations from the University of Queensland.