Harriet Bulkeley gained her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1999 where she subsequently held a Junior Research Fellowship and Leverhulme Research Fellowship before joining Durham University in 2003 where she was appointed as full professor in 2010. Since 2018 she has held a joint appointment with Utrecht University.

Her research focuses on the politics and practices of environmental governance, with particular focus on climate change. Her first book (with Michele Betsill) pioneered the field of cities and climate change and her research continues to examine the role of cities and other non-state actors in governing climate change.

She has also written extensively on the politics of energy transitions, smart cities, urban sustainability, biodiversity and nature-based solutions, publishing 15 books and edited collections and over 70 papers. She has been included in the Highly Cited Researchers list of the top 1% of researchers internationally four times since 2016.

Alongside her academic research, Prof. Bulkeley works closely to enable the translation of research for policy and has provided expert advice and undertaken commissioned research for the UK Government, European Commission, NGOs, UN-Habitat, the OECD and the World Bank. In 2014, she was awarded the King Carl XVI Gustaf’s Professorship in Environmental Science and a Visiting Professorship at Lund University, Sweden and in 2018 was granted the Back Award by the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of the policy impact of her work on climate change.

In 2019, she was elected as a Fellow of the UK Academy of the Social Sciences and as a Fellow of the British Academy. She has served as a member of ERC Advance Grants Panel SH2 and in 2020/21 was Chair of the SH7 panel.

Mandate ERC Scientific Council: 01 Jan 2023 - 31 Dec 2026 (1st term)