- Polycrisis
- Systemic risks
- Shocks
- Response diversity
- Governance
- Transformations
Louis Delannoy explores how to respond to multiple compounding crises.
Delannoy analyzes how crises emerge, how they interact, how they are perceived, and how to respond to them. He uses qualitative and computational methods, advancing a research synthesis at the intersection of social–ecological systems, ecological economics, and political science. Key scientific contributions include the formalization of the polycrisis concept, both theoretically and empirically.
Currently, Louis leads the Formas project “Advancing response diversity strategies for polycrisis management”, in which he develops a comprehensive database of historical and future crises. This includes detailed work on both shocks (e.g., floods, conflicts, disease outbreaks, etc.) and creeping changes (e.g., democratic backsliding, antimicrobial resistance, etc.). The aim is to analyze the frequency, intensity, and compounding effects of crises, as well as identifying the most effective sustainability response mixes to past events.
A related aspect of Louis’s work links polycrisis to governance. Specifically, he studies the conditions of emergence of transformation backlash in policy, what resilience capacities support sustainability at times of crises, the paralysis of multilateral environmental agreements, and how these insights can inform the post-2030 agenda.
He serves as course coordinator and lecturer for Crisis Management and Sustainability (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), seminar leader for Sustainability Science I and II (Stockholm University), and regularly gives lectures and seminars in Swedish Universities. He supervises several Master students, mentors PhD researchers, and serves on the Advisory Board of the UNIFAMN project, a collaborative project dedicated to enhancing the resilience, future crisis preparedness, and well-being of families across the Nordic countries.
His academic background includes a BSc in Civil Engineering and an MSc in Energy Management and Sustainability from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), followed by a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Université Grenoble Alpes. His doctoral research examined global systemic risks emerging from the interaction between energy, finance, and the economy-a line of work he continues to work with today through his involvement and stewardship of the Net Energy Analysis community.
Awards and achievements
- Selected as a Beijer Young Scholar (2024-2026).
- Guest editor for PLOS Climate.
- Member of the Macroeconomics for Net-Zero Society.
- Co-editor of the book “Net Energy Analysis: a State of the Art” (Routledge)
- Research affiliate to Swedish centre for impacts of climate extremes (climes)
Supervision
MSc | Main supervisor | |
|---|---|---|
MSc | Main supervisor |
Key publications
- Delannoy, L., Verzier, A., Bastien-Olvera, B. A., Benra, F., Nyström, M., & Søgaard Jørgensen, P. (2025). Dynamics of the polycrisis: temporal trends, spatial distribution, and co-occurrences of national shocks (1970–2019). Global Sustainability, 8. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2025.10008
- Delannoy, L., Leveugle, J., Maniatakou, S., & Jørgensen, P. S. (2025). More than a buzzword? Mapping interpretations of the ‘polycrisis.’ Sustainability Science, 21(3), 1177–1191. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-025-01790-9
- Jørgensen, P. S., Delannoy, L., Maniatakou, S., Folke, C., Moore, M., & Olsson, P. (2026). Both adaptive and transformative capacities are necessary to navigate global polycrisis. Global Sustainability, 9, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2026.10053
- Galaz, V., Schewenius, M., Donges, J. F., Fetzer, I., Zhivkoplias, E., Barfuss, W., Delannoy, L., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Gelbrecht, M., Heitzig, J., Hentati-Sundberg, J., Kennedy, C., Knecht, N., Lotcheris, R., Mahecha, M., Merrie, A., Montero, D., McPhearson, T., Mustafa, A., . . . Vadrot, A. (2025). AI for a Planet Under Pressure. Beijer Institute Report. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.24373
