Dr. Thomas Hickmann

Vening Meineszgebouw A
Princetonlaan 8a
Kamer 7.52
3584 CB Utrecht

Dr. Thomas Hickmann

Researcher
Environmental Governance
t.hickmann@uu.nl

Thomas Hickmann is researcher at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. He is a core team member of the GlobalGoals project assessing the steering effects of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals at different governmental levels and co-leads the work package international constraints and enablers of decarbonization in the ENGAGE consortium which aims at supporting the development of new climate policies to deliver on the Paris Agreement. His main research interests include multi-level governance dynamics in world politics, private authority in global sustainability politics, the relation between science and politics in international environmental regimes, and the role of cities and transnational actors in global policy-making.

 

Prior to his current position, he was post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Potsdam in Germany. Together with Harald Fuhr and Markus Lederer, he co-directed the research project Carbon Governance Arrangements and the Nation-State: The Reconfiguration of Public Authority in Developing Countries funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from October 2015 to June 2019. He has acquired profound teaching skills and conducted various courses at undergraduate and graduate level on topics related to global sustainability governance, environmental politics and climate policy.

 

In December 2014, he obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Potsdam for a study on the relationship between the intergovernmental negotiations clustered around the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the various transnational climate initiatives launched by sub-national, non-profit, and business actors (published in Routledge's Research Series in Global Environmental Governance in 2016, entitled "Rethinking Authority in Global Climate Governance: How transnational climate initiaitves relate to the international climate regime").

 

From 2004 to 2009, he studied Public Administration, Political Science, and Public Law at the University of Potsdam and the University of Copenhagen. During his studies, he gained practical experiences through internships at the 'German Federal Foreign Office' in the Division Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific; at the 'Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid' in the German Bundestag; and at the 'Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation' in the Office for Regional Cooperation in Southeast Asia based in Singapore.