Niki Frantzeskaki

Niki Frantzeskaki is a Chair Professor of Regional and Metropolitan Governance and Planning, Section Spatial Planning, Geosciences Faculty, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She is also serving as Research Director for the Utrecht University’s Strategic Theme ‘Pathways to Sustainability” since 2024. Her expertise is in urban transitions and transformations, their governance and planning, with a focus on achieving climate change adaptation and mitigation, sustainability, and resilience. Her research also focuses on the governance and planning of nature-based solutions for contributing to climate change resilience and more just urban futures. She has a rich international research experience with a portfolio of ongoing projects in Europe (Horizon Europe CARDIMED, MSCTN SUNSET, NURISH, UPSCALE), Australia, Canada (TRANSFORM and Graid), and the United States of America (NATURA). She is a Highly Cited Researcher awardee from Clarivate Analytics in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 putting her in the top 1% of researchers globally in the cross-field of social sciences and ecology. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles and 20 special issues and released eight books on urban sustainability transitions in 2017, 2018, 2020, 2023 and 2025. She is actively contributing as an author in GEO-5, GEO-6, ARC3.5 UCCRN (2020-2025 UNCCRN Special Report on Nature-based solutions in cities), IPBES (as Contributing Author in the 2019 Global Assessment/ Regional Report: Europe and from 2022-2024 as a Lead Coordinating Author in the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment) and IPCC (2025-2027 as a Lead Author in the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities).

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