Cille Kaiser is a PhD candidate in the Environmental Governance group at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. Trained in the liberal arts and sciences, she has an interdisciplinary background specializing in political science and environmental governance. Cille’s research interests centre on encounters between the policies and politics of climate change and socio-spatial conditions on the ground.

Cille's research centers on understanding and explaining how meanings and responses over ambitious climate action (e.g., fossil fuel phase-out, renewable energy development) are shaped by the places that people call home and the particular histories and logics of development that have shaped these places. Her work focuses in two locations: Cumbria (United Kingdom) and Hauts-de-France (France). Here, she is especially interested in understanding the relationship between extractive industries (e.g., coal, steel, and nuclear) and people’s responses to new (industrial) developments, such as new coal, new nuclear, and renewable energy.

This PhD project is part of a larger research project called Climate Backlash: Contentious Reactions to Policy Action (BACKLASH), led by Dr. James Patterson, Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. The overall project studies different examples of contentious responses to climate policymaking in advanced industrial countries. This project is funded by the European Research Council (grant number: 949332). For more information, please see the website at https://backlashproject.eu.

Cille holds a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts & Sciences from Amsterdam University College and a Master of Science in Political Science from VU University Amsterdam, where she specialized in global environmental governance. She has also participated in an academic exchange with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she studied journalism and sociology. Prior to joining the BACKLASH project, Cille worked as a lecturer at the VU’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration.