Frank Biermann
Frank Biermann is professor of political science and of environmental policy sciences at the VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He specialises in the study of global environmental politics, with emphasis on climate negotiations, UN reform, global adaptation governance, public-private governance mechanisms, the role of science, North-South relations, and trade and environment conflicts. He pioneered the concept of ‘earth system governance’ in 2005, which has evolved into a major global research programme in this field.
Biermann holds a number of research management positions. At the Institute for Environmental Studies of the VU University Amsterdam, he heads the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, a team of 35 researchers that has been evaluated in 2007, four years after its creation, as the top department in the field in the Netherlands and as ‘internationally at the forefront’. In 2007, Biermann was appointed Director-General of the Netherlands Research School for Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE.NL), a national research network of nine research institutes, 150 tenured environmental scientists and 350 PhD students. Biermann is also the founding director of the Global Governance Project (GLOGOV.ORG), a research programme of 12 European institutes. Internationally, Biermann serves as chair of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Earth System Governance Project, a ten-year international core research project of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (EARTHSYSTEMGOVERNANCE.ORG).
Biermann has authored, co-authored or edited 12 books, and published 56 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 64 chapters in academic books, along with more than 100 papers, reports, and contributions to policy-oriented journals. He is the co-editor (with O. Young) of the Earth System Governance book series with The MIT Press, member of the editorial boards of Ecology and Society, Global Environmental Politics and Environmental Values, and regular reviewer for 20 other academic journals. He is also regularly requested as reviewer for research foundations, agencies and universities in Europe, Israel, and the United States, and has been invited for media interviews in outlets as diverse as Dutch national newspapers and Korean National Television.
Biermann has held professional or visiting affiliations with several research institutions, including Freie Universität Berlin, German Advisory Council on Global Change, Harvard University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Maryland at College Park, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Social Science Research Centre Berlin, Stanford University, and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
Biermann has 14 years of teaching experience at MSc level in Germany, India, the Netherlands, and the United States. At present, he teaches the specialization Global Environmental Governance in the one-year MSc Political Science at the VU University Amsterdam. Five of his PhD students have graduated so far: three with highest distinction (summa cum laude), and two winning international awards.
Biermann has served the academic community in a variety of functions. Among others, he has been the initiator and first chair, in 2001, of the Berlin Conferences on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, which has evolved into an annual European series of widely attended academic gatherings. He also served on the boards of the Environmental Policy and Global Change section of the German Political Science Association (2000-2006, chair 2000-2003); of the Federation of German Scientists (2002-2006); and of the German Association for the United Nations, Berlin-Brandenburg Chapter (2001-2003). He has been the founding chair of the Indo-German Forum on International Environmental Governance, and of the Marine Affairs Working Group of the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development (1995-1997).
Biermann holds a habilitation (German postdoctoral academic qualification, 2001), a PhD summa cum laude from Freie Universität Berlin (1997), and master’s degrees in political science (Freie Universität Berlin, 1993) and international law (University of Aberdeen, 1994), both with distinction.
During his university studies, he travelled extensively throughout Africa and India. He has won several scholarships, grants and awards, including the 1998 Joachim Tiburtius Prize for the best dissertation of the three Berlin universities; a fellowship by Harvard University; and a scholarship by the Talented Students Programme of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (1991-1993). He was selected as the representative for Germany to the International Forum of Young Scientists during the 1999 UNESCO World Science Conference. At the age of 33, he was elected a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, a group of up to 500 individuals ‘chosen for eminence in art, the natural and social sciences, and the humanities’.
March 2010
Contact
Frank Biermann
can be reached at:
Prof. Frank Biermann
Department of Environmental Policy Analysis
Institute for Environmental Studies
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1087
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
e-mail: biermann@glogov.org
and
frank.biermann@ivm.vu.nl