Åsa Persson is a Post-Doc Researcher at the Stockholm Resilience Centre from September 2010 to June 2012. In parallel, she is Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute. She holds a PhD in human geography from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2007) and has ten years of experience of environmental policy research. Her main research interest has evolved from studying the national environmental policy-making process in Sweden and Europe, to the international and global governance of climate change adaptation. Particular topics that her research has addressed over the years include environmental policy integration (EPI), ‘new´ environmental policy instruments, strategic environmental assessment, mainstreaming climate in development finance, and global governance of the Earth system and ‘planetary boundaries´.
At the Centre, her post-doc research contributes to the Adaptive Governance theme. The aim is to examine whether emerging international governance of climate change adaptation, and in particular bi- and multilateral finance flows, will lead to a commodification of adaptation, how boundaries between private and public responsibility for adaptation are drawn, and to what extent the regime is adaptive. The empirical research will focus particularly on the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund.
She has also contributed to the Centre´s work on ‘planetary boundaries´ by coordinating and co-authoring the original publication in Nature. She participates in the follow-up work on exploring governance implications, which involves contact with the Earth System Governance project.
Her work has been widely published in journals such as Nature, International Environmental Agreements, European Environment, and Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, in edited volumes, and as SEI reports. She has also contributed to high-impact reports targeting the policy-maker community, such as Tony Blair´s climate report for the 2008 G8 meeting and a report on adaptation finance for COP15 in Copenhagen 2009.
Åsa regularly contributes to academic conferences and hold guest lectures on courses in international governance. She also has teaching experience from the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 2008, she organised a high-level scientific workshop at the Tällberg Forum which resulted in a Nature publication on ‘planetary boundaries´.
She has led research projects and consultancy assignments both for policy-maker clients, such as the Danish and Swedish governments and the European Commission, and secured grants from research councils such as the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning.
