Frank Biermann is professor of political science and of environmental policy sciences at the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He specializes in global environmental governance, with an emphasis on climate negotiations, UN reform, global adaptation governance, public-private governance mechanisms, the role of science, North-South relations, and trade and environment conflicts.

Biermann holds a number of research management positions. At the Institute for Environmental Studies of the VU University of Amsterdam, he heads the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, a team of 35 researchers, evaluated in 2007, four years after its creation, as the top department in its field in the Netherlands and described as ‘internationally at the forefront’. In 2007, Biermann was appointed Director-General of the Netherlands Research School for the Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment, a national research network of nine research institutes, 150 tenured environmental scientists and 350 PhD students. Biermann is also the founding director of the Global Governance Project, a research programme of 12 European institutes. Internationally, Biermann serves as chair of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Earth System Governance Project, a ten-year international core research project of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP).

Biermann has authored, co-authored or edited 11 books and published 50 articles in peer reviewed journals and 57 chapters in academic books, along with more than 100 papers, reports and contributions to policy-oriented journals. He is member of the editorial boards of Global Environmental Politics and Environmental Values and a regular reviewer for 15 other academic journals.