Prof. Dr. Silke Beck

Professor for Sociology of Science

Silke Beck’ is an internationally recognized expert in the field of global environmental expertise as well evidence-based policy-making on climate change, biodiversity and transformation towards sustainability. After an academic year in the Global Environmental Assessment Project (Harvard University), Beck has worked at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ Leipzig), one of Europe’s leading research centers on interdisciplinary environmental research development. She was (co)leading international inter- and transdisciplinary projects on climate change, ecosystem management, environmental innovation and sustainable transformation. The overarching goal of her research is to combine MCTS research on science in society with real-world engagements in advisory bodies and societal co-production in an interactive and reflexive way. She is also a founding member of the UFZ Science-Policy Expert Group which has performed a leading role in providing research in support of the design and evaluation of real-world interfaces in the field of global environmental politics: They have provided direct input into negotiation processes on the reform of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on the establishment of the national biodiversity network (Nefo) and the set-up of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=38006). Beck serves as lead expert for the IPBES Assessment of transformative change (https://www.ipbes.net/transformative-change). Recently, Beck is the principal investigator of the project “Governance of sociotechnical transformation” as part of the Belmont-Norface research programme “Transformation towards Sustainability” https://www.ufz.de/gost/.

Her work has been published in peer reviewed international academic journals such as Science, Nature, Current Opinion Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Environmental Science and Policy, Global Environmental Change, Global Environmental Politics, Regional Environmental Change, Science, Technology and Human Values, Futures and Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change.