Karin Bäckstrand is an ex-officio member of the Earth System Governance Scientific Steering Committee and Academic Advisor to the Earth System Governance International Project Office. She is a member of the Environmental Politics Research Group at the Department of Political Science at Lund University. She was a Wallenberg Fellow for Environment and Sustainability at the Laboratory for Energy and Environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2002-2004). Her research revolves around global environmental politics within the four areas below:
- The role of scientific expertise and risk in environmental decisionmaking
- Transnational governance of climate change
- The legitimacy and effectiveness of environmental politics
- The policy and politics of carbon capture and storage (CCS)
Projects
- CCS - The Politics and Policy of Carbon Capture and Storage, financed by Mistra, The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, 2008-2010 (Project coordinator)
- Transdemos - Democracy Beyond Nation States. Transnational Actors and Global Governance, financed by the Bank of Sweden 2007-2013 (Project participant)
- BECC- Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in a Changing Climate, Strategic Research Program funded by Formas and The Swedish Research Council, 2010-2014 (Deputy coordinator, board member of steering group).
- GreenGovern - Participation, Deliberation and Sustainability. Governance Beyond Rhetorics in the Domains of Climate, Forestry and Food Safety, financed by FORMAS, the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Science and Spatial Planning, 2006-2009 (Project coordinator)
International Networks
- Associated Faculty member of the Global Governance Project,a joint research program between eight European research institutions that seeks to advance understanding of new actors, institutions and mechanism of global governance, with a particular focus on environment and sustainability issues.
- Member of the Leverhulme Transnational Climate Governance Network, coordinated by Durham University 2008-2010.
- Management Committe of European Cooperation in Science and Technology COST The Transformation of Global Environmental Governance: Risk and Opportunities 2008-2012, coordinated by Vrije University Amsterdam
National Assignments
- Board member of the Expert Group for Environmental Studies (Expertgruppen för miljöstudier) under the Swedish Finance Ministry 2007-2010.
- External expert advisor to the Swedish government’s Commission on Sustainable Development (Regeringens kommissionen för hållbar utveckling) 2007-2009
- Member of Lund university working group for Environment and Sustainable Development in Research and Higher Education (Inspirationsgruppen för hållbar utveckling), which is appointed by the Vice Chancellor of Lund University 2007-
- Member of the Lund University Climate Iniative 2007-2008
Teaching
Karin teaches a range of environmental politics courses at the Department of Political Science as well as in LUMES - Lund University International Masters’ Programme for Environmental Studies at LUCSUS - Lund University Center for Sustainability Studies. She was also course director of an Environmental Governance course as part of Lund university and University of California Joint Summer School (JSS) Program.
