Dr. Zachary Paikin is a Researcher in EU Foreign Policy at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (CEPS). He is also a Nonresident Research Fellow with the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy in Toronto and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Global Policy Institute in London.

Along with the head of the Minsk Dialogue Yauheni Preiherman, Paikin is a member of the Cooperative Security Initiative, a project co-launched by GLOBSEC and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung's Vienna office in partnership with the OSCE aimed at strengthening peace and cooperation in the wider European region. He is additionally an expert with the Canada-Russia Research Initiative based at the University of Victoria, as well as a collaborator with the Network for Strategic Analysis, which forms part of the Canadian Ministry of National Defence's "Mobilization of New Ideas in Defence and Security" (MINDS) programme. He was named a GLOBSEC Young Leader in 2019 and is also affiliated with the European Leadership Network's Younger Generation Leaders Network on Euro-Atlantic Security (YGLN).

Paikin holds a BA in Middle East Studies and Political Science from McGill University, a Master of Global Affairs degree from the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and a PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent.