Katharina Hölscher is Assistant Professor in Just Transformation to Climate-Resilient Cities and Regions at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University. She engages in transformation-oriented research on how societal change towards a sustainable and resilience society can be realised.

Her research focuses on all things related to the governance of climate adaptation in cities, and in particular the role of institutions and institutional learning to enable urban planners and policymakers better deal with the complexities of climate change by supporting transformative governance capacities. She has studied how cities in Europe, the USA, India and South Africa experiment with innovative climate adaptation approaches (e.g. co-creation, climate emergency declarations) and solutions (e.g. nature-based solutions, wastewater reuse). She is interested in questions such as: What governance conditions enable experimentation, coordination and co-creation? What processes of institutional and social learning help mobilise and create these conditions? How does transformative climate governance re-shape roles and relations between various actors? How do climate adaptation solutions impact community resilience and justice?

Another major interest of Katharina is (how to facilitate) the adoption of transformative research approaches and methods, such as transdisciplinary research and citizen science, for the co-production of actionable knowledge. 

Before joining Utrecht University in 2022, Katharina has worked at the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT), with the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands from 2014 to 2022. She has been involved and led work packages in a range of EU FP7, EU Horizon 2020 and NWO-funded research projects. She has also engaged in policy advice for the German Environmental Agency. She has various publications in scientific journals and published two books on transformative climate governance and transition management in cities.