Dr Nick Ridley is an Hon. Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Justice Studies.

After graduating in History, he became a criminal intelligence analyst for over 22 years, firstly at the Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard, working in various departments including Special Branch and the Anti-Terrorist Branch, and then at Europol, the EU law enforcement agency in The Hague. Whilst researching and analysing for law enforcement he continued his studies.

He has a first degree in History and has studied for and gained two PhDs, one dealing with financial crime and the second in terrorist financing.

As part of his university teaching, he has taught at the Italian universities at Universita Cattolica Milan and at the University of Teramo; at The Hague University, Netherlands and was a guest lecturer at the NATO Centre of Excellence - Defence against Terrorism in Ankara, Turkey.He has given intelligence training to police in Rwanda and Abu Dhabi. He is the author of books on terrorism and insurgency including Terrorist Financing: the Failure of Counter Measures, Terrorism in East and West Africa - the Underfocussed Dimension and Michael Collins and the funding of political violence

Nick has several books published on behalf of Liverpool John Moores University.
His sixth book is a historical account of a Revolt in the Seventeenth Century in Europe, and then goes on to make comparisons with modern insurgencies, contrasting the starting points and events in modern insurgencies which caused violent popular unrest to escalate into national insurgencies for independence,and a seventh book on a history of diplomacy from the Sixteenth to the Twenty First Century, and how diplomacy contributes to conflict resolution.