
Professor Frans Berkhout
Assistant Principal (King’s Climate & Sustainability)
- Professor of Environment, Society, and Climate
Research interests
- Environment
- Geography
Contact details
Biography
Frans Berkhout is Professor of Environment, Society and Climate at King’s College London. He joined King’s in 2013 and was the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy between 2015 and 2021.
In February 2023, Frans was appointed Assistant Principal (King’s Climate & Sustainability) to drive forward the pace of research, education and action, to enable societal transition to environmental sustainability as a whole-university strategic priority. He leads the university’s strategy to accelerate transformative multidisciplinary research and embed sustainability more deeply into King’s teaching, impact, partnerships and operations.
He was previously Director of the Future Earth programme, based at the International Council for Science (ICSU) in Paris, and Director of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the VU University Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Before that, he held posts at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex, and was Director of the UK Economic and Social Research Council’s Global Environmental Change and Sustainable Technologies programmes.
Frans holds a BSc in Geography (Leeds, 1983) and a PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies (Sussex, 1989). He completed his post-doctoral research at Princeton University.
Amongst other advisory roles, Frans was a lead author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 4th and 5th Assessment Reports (2007 and 2014) and a member of the Social Science Panel of the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) of the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
He sits on the editorial boards of Research Policy, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Current Opinion on Environmental Sustainability, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning and The Anthropocene Review. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science and shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the IPCC.
Frans’ early research was concerned with the economic, political and security aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. Since then, his work has been concerned with science, technology, policy and sustainability, with a focus on climate change.
Research
- Systems innovation: the theoretical, methodological and empirical study of change in large socio-technical systems, including energy, transport, agro-food and urban systems. His work is informed by the history, economics and sociology of technical change and is concerned with understanding and informing ‘transitions’ towards more sustainable systems of provision. His recent work has sought to bridge between modelling, transitions studies and action research approaches to understanding transition processes, and to understand the mobility and wider influence of sustainability experiments.
- Climate change adaptation: research on the incentives, constraints and limits to adaptation by organisations and other social actors. His work is informed by behavioural organisational theory and policy studies, understanding that the adaptive capacity of actors is institutionally-situated. His interest flows from his work in the IPCC on ‘limits to adaptation’ and the application of a risk-based approach that he helped develop for the problem of ‘loss and damage’ in the UNFCCC. He is interested in developing approaches to specifying limits to adaptation that may inform novel approaches to the governance of losses suffered as actors reach such limits.
- Co-production of knowledge: sustainability science and research deals with deep and complex problems and aims to inform awareness and change. Environmental knowledge is distributed and changes in policy and practice are more likely when researchers and practitioners collaborate in producing knowledge. He has promoted and written about this more integrated approach to knowledge, and his current focus is through PATHWAYS, a Wellcome Trust-funded project aiming to improve urban health equity.
Frans has extensive research, research management and research training experience across a number of fields. His early research was concerned with the economic, political and security aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle and radioactive waste management. His more recent work has been concerned with science, technology, policy and sustainability, with a focus on climate change.
Teaching
PhD supervision
- Climate change adaptation: measuring effectiveness
- Limits to climate change adaptation: a risk approach
- Governance responses to ‘loss and damage’ as a result of climate change
- The geography of socio-technical transitions
- Linking analytical approaches for analysing socio-technical transitions
- Experimenting for sustainability transitions
Further details
Research

King's Climate Research Hub
Studying climate change through the relationship between science, policy and culture, particularly in the developing world.
Status not set
Climate researchers at King’s
King's researchers working across climate and sustainability
Status not setNews
Exchanging ideas on key climate actions needed at COP28
Students, academics, staff and visitors came together to discuss priorities for climate action ahead of this year’s COP28 meeting of world leaders.

King's hosts the Centre for Ecology & Evolution symposium
The symposium was an opportunity for ecologists and evolutionary biologists from across London to share their research on the topic 'Climate change and...

International School for Government hosts European Capitals programme
Participants had the opportunity to witness the inner workings of government

New installation on the Strand will imagine a climate-positive mythical world
Acclaimed design studio Superflux and King’s Culture present 'The Quiet Enchanting', an installation inspired by King’s climate and sustainability research

Project to limit the impact of melting glaciers on nearby people and systems
A new research project led by King’s is working to better support the people and systems downstream of glaciers and limit the melting taking place due to...

Celebrating the King's community driving forward sustainability
Staff, students and alumni came together at the King’s Climate & Sustainability Awards 2023 to celebrate the efforts of those helping to make King’s a more...

"I'm not aware of any other Higher Education institution that has a dedicated Net Zero Centre like the one at King's."
MPs, policymakers and business leaders joined the launch of King’s Net Zero Centre this week.

CASCADE INQUIRY launched with an evening imagining hopeful climate futures
King’s researchers, artists, students, and the wider community gathered in The Exchange, Bush House to explore the power of imagination and collective action...

Professor Frans Berkhout appointed as Assistant Principal (King's Climate & Sustainability)
Professor Berkhout will lead a cross-university drive to rapidly scale King’s response to the climate emergency

Experimental research project CASCADE INQUIRY will explore hopeful climate futures
CASCADE INQUIRY is an ambitious initiative of experiential projects by Superflux that imagine future worlds where positive climate action has been taken.

Events

COP28: Time for actions not words
In the run up to the COP28 global climate summit, the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy is hosting a stimulating and interactive evening centred...
Please note: this event has passed.

Climate Change: What can we do?
The AKC will be collaborating with the KCL Climate Action Society to present a Student-Academic-Activist led Panel discussing 'Climate Change: What can we do?'
Please note: this event has passed.

CASCADE INQUIRY: Exploring hopeful climate futures
Join King's Culture for a generative discussion introducing CASCADE INQUIRY, a new initiative by Superflux that imagines climate-positive futures.
Please note: this event has passed.

Sustainability Interdisciplinary Research Forum
This hybrid event will showcase sustainability research across King's and explore how interdisciplinary research can be strengthened.
Please note: this event has passed.

Climate change and COVID-19: What have we learned?
As part of our King's Experts Series, join us as we ask our panel: What lessons can we learn from the pandemic when it comes to climate change and the...
Please note: this event has passed.
Features
'Places without postcards' highlights impact of climate change around the world
The Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy has created a collection of ‘postcards’ from key places around the globe that tell an important story around...

Climate COP27: Do climate summits make a difference?
Professor Frans Berkhout asks the question: What do they climate summits achieve? And do they make a difference?

'Broader global perspective' needed to tackle climate emergency
The climate emergency: Do we need a whole new political economy?

Research

King's Climate Research Hub
Studying climate change through the relationship between science, policy and culture, particularly in the developing world.
Status not set
Climate researchers at King’s
King's researchers working across climate and sustainability
Status not setNews
Exchanging ideas on key climate actions needed at COP28
Students, academics, staff and visitors came together to discuss priorities for climate action ahead of this year’s COP28 meeting of world leaders.

King's hosts the Centre for Ecology & Evolution symposium
The symposium was an opportunity for ecologists and evolutionary biologists from across London to share their research on the topic 'Climate change and...

International School for Government hosts European Capitals programme
Participants had the opportunity to witness the inner workings of government

New installation on the Strand will imagine a climate-positive mythical world
Acclaimed design studio Superflux and King’s Culture present 'The Quiet Enchanting', an installation inspired by King’s climate and sustainability research

Project to limit the impact of melting glaciers on nearby people and systems
A new research project led by King’s is working to better support the people and systems downstream of glaciers and limit the melting taking place due to...

Celebrating the King's community driving forward sustainability
Staff, students and alumni came together at the King’s Climate & Sustainability Awards 2023 to celebrate the efforts of those helping to make King’s a more...

"I'm not aware of any other Higher Education institution that has a dedicated Net Zero Centre like the one at King's."
MPs, policymakers and business leaders joined the launch of King’s Net Zero Centre this week.

CASCADE INQUIRY launched with an evening imagining hopeful climate futures
King’s researchers, artists, students, and the wider community gathered in The Exchange, Bush House to explore the power of imagination and collective action...

Professor Frans Berkhout appointed as Assistant Principal (King's Climate & Sustainability)
Professor Berkhout will lead a cross-university drive to rapidly scale King’s response to the climate emergency

Experimental research project CASCADE INQUIRY will explore hopeful climate futures
CASCADE INQUIRY is an ambitious initiative of experiential projects by Superflux that imagine future worlds where positive climate action has been taken.

Events

COP28: Time for actions not words
In the run up to the COP28 global climate summit, the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy is hosting a stimulating and interactive evening centred...
Please note: this event has passed.

Climate Change: What can we do?
The AKC will be collaborating with the KCL Climate Action Society to present a Student-Academic-Activist led Panel discussing 'Climate Change: What can we do?'
Please note: this event has passed.

CASCADE INQUIRY: Exploring hopeful climate futures
Join King's Culture for a generative discussion introducing CASCADE INQUIRY, a new initiative by Superflux that imagines climate-positive futures.
Please note: this event has passed.

Sustainability Interdisciplinary Research Forum
This hybrid event will showcase sustainability research across King's and explore how interdisciplinary research can be strengthened.
Please note: this event has passed.

Climate change and COVID-19: What have we learned?
As part of our King's Experts Series, join us as we ask our panel: What lessons can we learn from the pandemic when it comes to climate change and the...
Please note: this event has passed.
Features
'Places without postcards' highlights impact of climate change around the world
The Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy has created a collection of ‘postcards’ from key places around the globe that tell an important story around...

Climate COP27: Do climate summits make a difference?
Professor Frans Berkhout asks the question: What do they climate summits achieve? And do they make a difference?

'Broader global perspective' needed to tackle climate emergency
The climate emergency: Do we need a whole new political economy?
