is Director of the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy and holds the Franz Haniel Chair of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt. His academic work centers on energy security and the international political economy of decarbonization. Goldthau held professorships at the University of London and Central European University, and conducted research at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the RAND Corporation, and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is Senior Advisor for Geopolitics of Energy and Industrial Transformation at the Research Institute for Sustainability in Potsdam, Speaker of the doctoral program “Deglobalization and Global Decoupling” at the University of Erfurt, and a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges. His books have been published by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Palgrave, and Wiley.

is a political scientist from Recife, Brazil. He joined the RIFS-Potsdam in 2021 as Research Associate for the Democratic Governance for Ecopolitical Transformations (Ecopol) project, which analyzes the dynamics of sustainability governance. His research interests include US foreign policy, critical security studies, transdisciplinary research, environmental justice, and the intersection of geopolitics and ecopolitics, with the Amazon Basin as case study. He has worked at international organizations and think tanks in Europe and Latin America. He graduated in Social Sciences at the Federal University of Pernambuco, holds an MSc in comparative politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD degree in political science from the Freie Universität Berlin.

List of Suggested Readings

Basic Readings:

– Global Inequality Project: Responsibility for Climate Breakdown.

– Transnational Resource and Action Center. “Greenhouse Gangsters vs. Climate Justice” (1999).

– Grove, Jairus Victor. Introduction to Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World (2019).

– Jurema, B., & König, E. (2024). State Power and Capital in the Climate Crisis: A Theory of Fossil Imperialism. In F. Sultana (Ed.), Confronting Climate Coloniality (pp. 62-77). London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003465973.

– The Principles of Environmental Justice (1991)

– Bali Principles of Climate Justice (2002)

Further Readings:

On Environmental Justice & Ecological Conflicts:

– Martinez-Alier, Joan. The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (2002)

– Malm, Andreas & Carton, Wim. Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown (2024).

On Colonial Roots of Climate Crisis & Inequality:

– Brand, Ulrich, and Markus Wissen. The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism (2021).

– Parsons, Laurie. Carbon colonialism: How rich countries export climate breakdown (2023).

– Ghosh, Amitav. The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis (2021).

– Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (2001).

On Deficient Decolonization & Pathways to Justice (Reparations, Worldmaking, Coloniality):

– Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O. Reconsidering Reparations (2022).

– Getachew, Adom. Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (2024).

– Prashad, Vijay. The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (2013).

– Mitchell, Timothy. Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (2011).

joined the RIFS in 2012 and leads the group “Climate Action in National and International Processes (ClimAct).” ClimAct focuses on participation in and understanding of political forums that aim to drive climate action, with a particular emphasis on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC).

Kathleen holds a Ph.D. in atmospheric chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and worked at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) prior to joining the RIFS. This perspective – combining scientific expertise with practical experience in the world of policy and administration – shapes her approach to both research and policy-oriented work.

leads the Ocean Governance Research Group at RIFS since September 2022. Trained as a geographer, she has specialized human-environment interactions, sustainable development and (environmental) governance of coastal and marine areas. Her research interest is in understanding how governance processes can be designed and supported in such a way that they foster sustainable approaches and provide responses to the challenges ahead. She employs transdisciplinary and transformative research approaches and focuses particularly on the interface of science, policy/administration, and civil society. Barbara was a research associate at the Chair of Physical Geography and Environmental Research at Saarland University, Germany, from 1997 to 2010 and received her PhD in 2002. From 2010 to 2017, she was a member of the Cluster of Excellence “The Future Ocean” in Kiel and employed as a research associate in the working group Coastal Risks and Sea Level Rise at the Institute of Geography at Kiel University. Here she researched and taught on climate change, sea-level rise impacts, and sustainability and governance of coastal areas. She joined the RIFS (formerly the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, IASS) in 2017.

is head of the transdisciplinary research group “Democratic Governance and Ecopolitical Transformations” (EcoPol) at RIFS Potsdam. She is currently working with the EcoPol group on a transdisciplinary case study in the Amazon Basin. Within the Amazon Basin, research areas include rights of nature, environmental crises, indigenous activism, knowledge production, populism, and climate policy development in the context of the Paris Agreement. Oliveira previously led the Implementing the Paris Agreement (2017-2018) and Democratic re-configurations of sustainability transformations (2019-2020) groups. She is also co-president of the Amazon Section of the Latin American Studies Association.

Oliveira researches the relationship between democracy and ecopolitics. She focuses on topics such as climate change regimes, environmental justice, ecopolitical transterritoriality, and science and technology studies. Another area of interest is science communication, aiming to connect art and politics through dialogue forums, documentaries, podcasts, performances, and lectures.

Oliveira received her PhD in international relations from the Pontifical Catholic University in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2016. She wrote part of her dissertation as a Fulbright Scholar at the Columbia University’s Earth Institute (2013-2014) in New York, on the topic of “Millennium Development Goals: secured life and planetary governmentality.” Prior to that, she completed a Master’s in International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University in Sao Paulo and another Master’s as an Alban Scholar at the University of Padua, Italy, in Critical Criminology and Social Prevention.

is a senior research associate at RIFS. Marianne joined the ‘Role and Potential of Unconventional Gas’ group in 2013 and her work encompassed all aspects of the shale gas debate but specifically stakeholder dialogue and public engagement across Europe as well as greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions associated with a possible shale gas development in Europe. She then was part of the Arctic Governance research group from 2015-2024 and her research focused largely on oil and gas resources across Arctic regions and questions of resource estimation, scientific knowledge production, use and communication. She has recently joined the Planetary Geopolitics research group and her work also now focuses on the role of geologists in changing energy landscapes within the wider frame of 21st Century environmental and climate challenges. Prior to joining RIFS, she worked in the oil and gas industry (offshore and onshore) for five years on projects including conventional oil and gas, shale gas and coal bed methane exploration as well as geothermal drilling projects worldwide. Her experiences of the human implications of hydrocarbon exploration around the world led her to her research at the RIFS. Marianne lives in Potsdam with her husband and three children.

is the Head of the German Arctic Office at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). The office serves as a vital platform for information exchange and cooperation among German stakeholders in science, politics, and industry, addressing Arctic-related challenges and opportunities.

Prior to his current role, Dr. Rachold served as Executive Secretary of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) from 2006 to 2017, first in Stockholm and later in Potsdam.

A geochemist by training, Dr. Rachold earned his Ph.D. from Göttingen University in 1994, where he also completed his undergraduate studies. Since then, he worked with the AWI. His research focused on land-ocean interactions in the Siberian Arctic and he led several land- and ship-based Russian-German expeditions.

holds a Diploma in Agricultural Engineering and a PhD in Agricultural Economics and started her career as Assistant Professor at the Bonn University, Germany. Afterwards she advised policy actors on trade and food policy at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht, The Netherlands. In this context she led extensive capacity building seminars for developing countries’ trade negotiators in the frame of WTO.

Recently she is Senior Associate at the German Institute for International and Security (SWP) in Berlin and advices policy actors on EU’s trade, agricultural and food policy, often focussing on development and foreign security aspects. She is member of the strategic advisory board of the special initiative »Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems« of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium (IATRC) and the UK’s Trade and Public Policy Network (TaPP).

is a Research Associate at the Research Institute for Sustainability and affiliate of the Program on Science, Technology and Society at Harvard Kennedy School. Hilton studied social theory and physics (A.B.) at Harvard College and political theory (M.A.) at Yale University. In 2025, he completed his Ph.D. in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, where he specialized in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and development economics. Drawing on this training, Hilton explores the role that scientific and technical expertise play in developing solutions to problems of poverty, inequality and development. His dissertation analyzed how leading inequality economists in the US, France and India developed disparate research methods-randomized controlled trials (RCTs), distributional national accounts and “action-oriented” research-consistent with local understandings of justice and social welfare. At RIFS, Hilton is looking at the emergence of the “growth paradigm” in economic thought, and how technology has been conceived as a solution to the problem of planetary limits. He will also develop his ongoing research on the politics of the energy transition in Europe and the global South.

is honorary professor at Potsdam University and founder and managing partner at Climate Focus, an international climate advisory firm. Charlotte serves as a strategic consultant to numerous governments, private companies, foundations, and non-for-profit organizations and is actively involved in the debate on climate finance, carbon markets, nature-based solutions and agriculture. Trained as biologist and lawyer, Charlotte is a former Sr Counsel with the World Bank. She serves on several boards, advisory and editorial panels, is a former lead counsel for climate change with the Center for International Sustainable Development Law with McGill University, and a lecturer at Bayreuth University.

is Scientific Director at the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB) and Vice-President of the Leibniz Association. In a joint appointment, she holds the professorship “Agricultural Engineering in Bioeconomic Systems” at the Humboldt University of Berlin and she is founding member of the working group on circular bioeconomy systems of the International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering CIGR.

After studying process and environmental engineering in Constance, she completed her doctorate at the University of Kassel and initially conducted research at the Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability at Newcastle University. In her scientific work, Barbara Sturm focusses on system approaches to resource-efficient food processing and energy and process efficiency in food processing and animal husbandry. She is focussing on innovative process control systems and the use of digital twins.

is the Director for Marine Environmental Protection at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Protection, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN). Previously, from 2011-2022, he led the research group on ocean governance at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Potsdam. In this role he initiated numerous international research initiatives, lectured on ocean governance, and advised governments and international organisations on key marine policy processes for achieving ocean health. In 2007 he was appointed to be Deputy Secretary to the OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North‐East Atlantic. In that role he supported negotiations of new international legislation for marine conservation and environmental impacts of human activities, including the development of the world’s first network of marine protected areas on the “High Seas”. From 2004-2007 Sebastian Unger served at the German Federal Foreign Office, where he coordinated the Ministry’s work on international maritime affairs. He has an academic background in biology with political science.

joined RIFS (then IASS) in 2017 and forms part of the group ˝Climate Action in National and International Processes (ClimAct), which facilitates participation in and understanding of climate policy forums, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), and the Deutsches Klima Konsortium. Her research focuses on global climate governance, climate policy processes in Germany, the EU and the USA, and the integration of climate and air quality policies. She builds on more than ten years of experience in climate politics, gained also during previous work for the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), the Environmental Action Germany (DUH) and the Technical University Berlin. Charlotte graduated in public and private environmental management and holds a PhD in political sciences from the Technical University Munich School of Governance. Her dissertation examined the linking of different emissions trading systems around the world.

is a Research Associate at the Research Institute for Sustainability – GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany. Her areas of expertise include the geopolitics and geoeconomics of the net zero transition in the European Union and globally, with a special focus on hydrogen policies in the EU and its Member States. She has served as co-editor of two open-access edited volumes published by Springer on the geopolitics of hydrogen: The Geopolitics of Hydrogen, Vol. 1: European Strategies in Global Perspective (2024) and The Geopolitics of Hydrogen, Vol. 2: Major Economies and Their Strategies (2025). She is also a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen, focusing on renewable energy and hydrogen development in hydrocarbon-rich states in Eurasia.

is a Research Associate at the Research Institute for Sustainability – GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany. Her areas of expertise include the geopolitics and geoeconomics of the net zero transition in the European Union and globally, with a special focus on hydrogen policies in the EU and its Member States. She has served as co-editor of two open-access edited volumes published by Springer on the geopolitics of hydrogen: The Geopolitics of Hydrogen, Vol. 1: European Strategies in Global Perspective (2024) and The Geopolitics of Hydrogen, Vol. 2: Major Economies and Their Strategies (2025). She is also a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen, focusing on renewable energy and hydrogen development in hydrocarbon-rich states in Eurasia.