Jan Minx

Impact-oriented scholar bringing innovative evidence-synthesis approaches to domestic policy advice and global assessments about climate action and sustainability

(Last updated during their term as a Commissioner - January 2022)


Jan Minx is an impact-oriented scholar working as a professor of climate change and public policy at the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds. Based in Germany, he also heads up the Applied Sustainability Science working group of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, a scientific think tank combining economic and social science analyses to guide public policy. Jan has contributed substantially to the recent work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a coordinating lead author of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, where he co-leads the chapter on emission trends and drivers in the Mitigation of Climate Change working group. He also played a major role during the fifth assessment cycle, where he coordinated the report process as head of the Technical Support Unit. Jan’s research spans climate, environmental and sustainability policy. Methodologically, a primary focus of his work is evidence synthesis, exploring how artificial intelligence can help to scale evidence-synthesis methods to very large bodies of evidence and apply them in the context of global environmental assessments where modelling is the dominant methodological approach; and developing new evidence-synthesis methods to advance scientific policy advice and global environmental assessments. He holds a PhD in environmental economics and management from the University of York and completed his undergraduate degree in economics and political science at the University of Cologne.

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