Frans Berkhout Email Address

Executive Dean, Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy

King's College, University of London

Frans Berkhout is Professor of Environment, Society and Climate in the Department of Geography at King’s College London. From 2015 until 2021 he was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy at King’s. He has previously held academic positions at Princeton University (US), the University of Sussex (UK) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL). He holds a Geography BSc from the University of Leeds and a PhD in Science & Technology Policy Studies from the University of Sussex. Among other advisory roles, Professor Berkhout was a lead author in two Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007 and 2014) and a member of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) of the UK Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). From 2015 until 2022, he was chair of UK Future Earth, a joint committee of four UK scientific academies which supports integrated research and action on global sustainability. Frans' early research was concerned with the economic, political and security aspects of radioactive waste and nuclear weapons materials. Over the past 25 years, his work has been concerned with science, technology, policy and sustainability, with a focus on knowledge production, innovation and climate change. His main academic contributions have been to the understanding of innovation in socio-technical systems and adaptation by organisations to climate change impacts. He sits on the editorial boards of Research Policy, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Current Opinion on Environmental Sustainability, Journal of Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning and The Anthropocene Review. Berkhout shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with other authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and he is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK).