Dr Susannah Fisher

Dr Susannah Fisher works across research, policy and practice on adaptation to climate change and joined King's in 2022.

She was previously a Lecturer at UCL and worked as a technical advisor with multilateral agencies, philanthropies and governments on climate adaptation finance and strategy.

She has held senior roles in policy research as the Head of Research at Europe’s climate innovation agency leading their cross-cutting research agenda and a Team Leader and Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) examining the effectiveness of climate-related interventions in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. She has also worked in the African Climate Policy Centre in the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and at the Grantham Institute on Climate Change at the LSE.

She holds a PhD from the Geography Department at the University of Cambridge.

 

Research

Research Interests

• The politics of adapting to climate change
• The use and production of knowledge within policy processes
• Measurement systems and indicators
• Climate justice and gender
• Innovation and adaptation

Description of Research

Susannah's research explores climate politics and governance across different levels of action. Her work has analysed the role of ideas and knowledge in shaping national planning processes around climate change, how international urban networks influence action in cities, and how local action, national policies, international organisations and adaptation finance interact to shape decisions and action.

She is interested in what constitutes effective adaptation and her research has focused on practical tools and approaches to assess how effective programmes are, operationalising the global adaptation goal in the Paris Agreement, as well as research analysing how evaluation and learning systems interact with local and national planning processes.

She is developing new work on measurement practices in adaptation drawing on approaches from Geography, Science and Technology Studies and International Relations.

PhD Supervision

• Climate adaptation planning processes
• Climate finance
• Analysis of measurement systems