Dr. Björn Nykvist is a Research Fellow at Stockholm Environment Institute and a post doc Researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre. He holds a PhD in natural resource management and has worked interdisciplinary with research on sustainability and governance of energy, transport and natural resources since 2005. He has written and contributed to more than 10 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and equally many research reports.

Nykvist's main research interest is that of understanding how social processes influence natural resource management, environmental governance and technological development. This research builds on a interdisciplinary background with degrees in the psychology, focusing on decision making; physics, focusing on energy systems, complex adaptive systems, and mathematical finance, and the PhD degree in natural resource management, that brought together results on studies of social learning at a range of governance levels.

Recent and ongoing research projects focus on three topics: Studies of policy making, technological innovations, and transitions between different socio-technical regimes, focused on low-carbon technologies and sustainable mobility. Research on social learning and adaptive governance and institutions, currently focused on a case study of management of natural resources linked to lake Mälaren. And finally, research on the policy relevance of using planetary boundaries as a framework for measuring and comparing national environmental performance.

Publications

• Ten times more difficult: Quantifying the carbon capture and storage challenge (Journal article - 2013)

• Driving Technological Innovation for a Low-Carbon Society: Case Studies for Solar Photovoltaics and Carbon Capture and Storage (Research report - 2012)

• Understanding Policy Coherence: Analytical Framework and Examples of Sector–Environment Policy Interactions in the EU (Journal article - 2012)

• Resilient institutions and institutional resilience: exploring social-ecological memory and social learning (Other publications - 2010)

• Personal Carbon Trading as a Potential Policy Instrument to Reduce Swedish Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Working paper - 2010)

• A European Eco-Efficient Economy: Governing climate, energy and competitiveness (Project report - 2009)

• Rationalising the policy mess? Ex ante policy assessment and the utilisation of knowledge in the policy process (Journal article - 2009)

• A transitions model for sustainable mobility (Journal article - 2009)

• Are impact assessment procedures actually promoting sustainable development? Institutional perspectives on barriers and opportunities found in the Swedish committee system (Journal article - 2009)

• A safe operating space for humanity (Journal article - 2009)

Complete list of publications »

Projects

• Multi-level Sanitation Policy and Practice in Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania

  
  

• 3C - Enabling the development of technologies required to reach a low-carbon economy

  
  

• Hydrogen in the Sahel

  
  

• Personal Carbon Trading in Sweden

  
  

• MATISSE: Methods and tools for integrated sustainability assessment

  
  

• EPIGOV: Environmental Policy Integration and Multi-Level Governance