PS21 is pleased to announce that Reuters global defence correspondent Peter Apps will take up the role of executive director from January 12on paid sabbatical from Thomson Reuters. He will lead the project for Study Of the 21st Century through its initial launch, events and products in 2015 including with a major conference in Washington DC at the end of the year.

Having joined Reuters in 2003, Peter was posted overseas in southern Africa and Sri Lanka. In September 2006, its minibus collided with a tractor while on a reporting trip covering the conflict in the latter, leaving him largely paralysed from the shoulders down. Returning to work in a wheelchair, he covered the emerging markets during the 2008 crash before becoming political risk correspondent for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Since 2013, he has been global defence correspondent. Of the 20 or so countries he has covered for Reuters, more than half have been since the injury.

“I’m very excited to be taking on a full-time role at PS21,” he said. “It’s going to be an interesting year. The list of global fellows who will be joining us is pretty jawdropping and I’m hugely honoured to be working with them. There are a lot of interesting issues and trends out there and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into them.”