“Political and legal research for a world that is more equal, less wasteful, more inclusive, and in balance with nature.”

Frank Biermann is a research professor of Global Sustainability Governance with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He is an internationally leading scholar of global institutions and organizations in the sustainability domain.

Founder of the Earth System Governance network

Biermann pioneered the ‘earth system’ governance paradigm in global change research in 2005 and was the founder and first chair (2008-2018) of the Earth System Governance Project, a global transdisciplinary research network of over 700 sustainability scholars.

Current research 

Biermann recently completed a €2.5 million research programme on the steering effects of the Sustainable Development Goals, funded by a European Research Council Advanced Grant (globalgoals.eu). His current work—initiated during his tenure as 2025 Zennström Visiting Professor in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University—focuses on developing a better theoretical understanding of plurilateral planetary politics. He also leads the new International Panel on Earth System Governance and co-leads a global academic initiative calling for a ban on solar geoengineering technologies.

Over 200 publications

Biermann has authored or coedited 23 books and published around 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. His work has been cited over 34,000 times, reflecting its broad influence in the field. He is regularly invited to serve on advisory and evaluation panels and has delivered talks at high-level forums such as the United Nations General Assembly, the European Parliament, and the European Economic and Social Committee.

Awards

In 2024, Biermann received—as the first political scientist and as the first scholar from the Netherlands—the Volvo Environment Prize, awarded “for defining new pathways for international environmental governance in a period of global change.”

In 2021, he was the first EU-citizen to be honoured with the Distinguished Scholar Award in Environmental Studies by the International Studies Association, recognizing “outstanding scholars whose long history of excellent research and teaching has had substantial impact on fields associated with international relations and environmental issues“. 

He also won: 

• a Honorary Doctorate from Lund University for pioneering contributions to the field of global sustainability politics and earth system governance (2026);
• a  Highly Cited Researcher award, ‘in recognition of exceptional research performance, demonstrating of significant influence … for multiple Highly Cited Papers which rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science over the past decade’ (Clarivate 2025);
• the 2025 Zennström Visiting Professorship in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University;
• an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, Germany's highest research award endowed with 5 million EUR, for assuming a professorship in Germany (declined);
• a European Research Council ‘Advanced Grant’ (the highest personal award from EU institutions); 
• Ecological Society of America’s 2019 Innovations in Sustainability Science Award; 
• the 2013 Societal Impact Award of VU University Amsterdam for ‘path-breaking research on global environmental policy’;
• the 2011 Social Science Research Prize of VU University Amsterdam; and 
• the 1998 Joachim Tiburtius Prize awarded for the best dissertations of the Berlin universities. 

Biermann is an elected Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, a group of 700 individuals ‘chosen for eminence in art, the natural and social sciences, and the humanities’.

Recent books

Biermann's most recent books are Could We Ever Govern Solar Geoengineering (Cambridge University Press, in press); The Future of the Sustainable Development Goals: Pathways towards Sustainability beyond 2030 (CUP 2026, in press), Essential Concepts for Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals: An A-Z Guide (Routledge 2025), The Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals (Cambridge UP, 2022); Architectures of Earth System Governance: Institutional Complexity and Structural Transformation (Cambridge UP, 2020), and Anthropocene Encounters: New Directions in Green Political Thinking (Cambridge UP, 2019). 

Many of his articles and papers can be downloaded for free at Academia.edu and Research Gate.

For information and availability of all his books, please visit Biermann's Amazon page.

For regular updates on Biermann's research, see his blog.