Frank Biermann is a research professor of Global Sustainability Governance with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Biermann is an internationally leading scholar of global institutions and organizations in the sustainability domain, with widely cited research on international organizations, multilateral regimes, climate refugees, Sustainable Development Goals, the politics of science, global justice, and fragmented architectures of global governance.

​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 leading global transdisciplinary research network of sustainability scholars. He currently directs a 2.5-million EUR research programme on the steering effects of the Sustainable Development Goals, supported by an ERC ‘Advanced Grant’ awarded to him in 2018, among other functions.

His recent books include The Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals (Cambridge University Press 2022), Architectures of Earth System Governance (Cambridge University Press 2020); Anthropocene Encounters: New Directions in Green Political Thinking (Cambridge University Press 2019); Governing through Goals: Sustainable Development Goals as Governance Innovation (MIT Press 2017) and Earth System Governance: World Politics in the Anthropocene (MIT Press 2014).

Biermann has received numerous awards for his scientific contributions, including in 2021 the International Studies Association’s Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies award. In October 2024, he became the first political scientist to receive the prestigious Volvo Environment Prize.”