Dr. Xiao-Shan Yap is Assistant Professor of Innovation and Global Governance at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Faculty of Geosciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Yap is Principal Investigator and the director of a five-year research program (2024 - 2029) on ‘Planetary stewardship in view of earth-space sustainability’ (PLANETSTEWARDS), supported by a 1.5 million euro ‘Starting Grant’ from the European Research Council (ERC).  

An interdisciplinary social scientist, Yap focuses on the intersection of innovation and transitions, global governance, and development economics. She pioneered the concept of ‘earth-space sustainability’, which advocates for tackling challenges on Earth and in space in an integrative way as anthropogenic activities expand to outer space. In 2020, she founded ‘Earth-Space Sustainability’, the first science and policy initiative aiming at ensuring sustainable and functional earth-space systems in the future. In line with the initiative, she is also elected Co/Vice-Chair of the EU COST Action ‘Futures-oriented Governance of Outer Space: Towards Peace, Equity, and Environmental Integrity’ (FOGOS), which spans more than 30 institutes. She is also Co-Chair of the Taskforce on Earth-Space Governance at the Earth System Governance Project, Founding Chair of the ‘2024 Earth-Space Symposium’, and Senior Policy Advisor to the EPFL Space Center, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in Switzerland. Among others, Yap was also the lead author of Chapter 8 of the 2024 OECD Report on ‘The Economics of Space Sustainability’ and the lead scientist of the Geneva Science-Policy Interface (GSPI) project ‘Equitable Access to Outer Space: New Regulatory Needs for Radio Spectrum Management’ in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva. At Utrecht University (UU), she serves on the UU Advisory Committee for ERC Starting Grants for Humanities and Social Sciences. 

In the past, she had also served on the Editorial Board of the leading journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, as a senior member of the Steering Group at the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN), and as (Co)Chair of Commons in Space at the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) from 2022 - 2023. Additionally, Yap's work had also been awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Starting Grant of 1.8 mil CHF in 2023, a Geneva Science-Policy Interface (GSPI) Impact Collaboration Grant, a Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship in 2017, and a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship in 2015.