Chair of Environmental and Climate Policy

Resumé

Prof. Miranda Schreurs (PhD University of Michigan) is Chair of Climate and Environmental Policy at the Munich School of Politics and Public Policy, Technical University of Munich where she leads a team of post-docs, doctoral, masters, and bachelors students researching on the social and political dimensions of energy transitions, climate change, nature protection, circular economy, plastic pollution, among many other topics. She investigates environmental movements, green politics, and climate policy making both comparatively and internationally, and brings her academic knowledge into her policy advising activities. She has lived and researched in Europe, the United States and Asia and speaks English, German, Japanese, and Dutch. In 2025 she received an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University for her contributions to global environmental and climate protection and in 2023 she received the Technical University of Munich’s Sustainability Award. She is chair of the German Committee to IIASA and a board member of the Regulatory Assistance Project as well as of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies. In 2011, Prof. Schreurs was appointed by Chancellor Angela Merkel as a member of the Ethics Committee for a Secure Energy Supply. In 2016, she was appointed by the German Bundestag as a member of a committee (Nationale Begleitgremium) established to bring citizens’ voices and ensure greater transparency in the search for a disposal site for highly radioactive waste. For nine years, she co-chaired the committee, first with Klaus Töpfer and later with Armin Grunwald. She was a member of the German Council on the Environment (2008-2016) and served both as Vice Chair and Chair of the European Advisory Council on Environment and Sustainable Development. In 2025, her nine years as co-chair of the Nationale Begleitgremium (Cititzens’ Oversight Committee) accompanyzing the search for a repository for high level radioactive waste came to an end. She was a Fulbright Fellow to Japan and Germany and spent three years studying at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She also worked as a professor of comparative politics at the University of Maryland. From 2007 to 2016 she was Director of the Environmental Policy Research Center and Professor of Comparative Policy at the Free University of Berlin. Schreurs speaks English, Dutch, German, and Japanese. 

Key Publications

Thomas Sattich, Espen Moe, Marco Grasso, Schreurs, M. and Shaohua Yan Eds. 2025 De Gruyter Handbook of Ocean Governance and Maritime Affairs. De Gruyter. Abstract

Miranda A. Schreurs (2024). “Jockeying for Climate Leadership Amidst Rising Global Tensions: China, the United States, and the European Union,” in Sebastian Biba, Europe in an Era of US-China Strategic Rivalry: Challenges and Opportunities from an Outside-in Perspective, Springer. 

Jens Marquardt and Miranda Schreurs (2023). “Governing the Climate Crisis: Three Challenges for SDG 13,” in Lena Partzsch, ed. The Environment in Global Sustainability Governance: Perceptions, Actors, Innovations, Bristol Univ. Press, Chapter 2. 

Schreurs, M. 2023. “Implications of the Russian War on Ukraine for Climate Policy and the Geopolitics of Energy,” Canadian Journal of Russian and European Studies, 162: 90-113. doi.org/10.22215/cjers.v16i2.2765.Abstract

Dörte Ohlhorst and Miranda A. Schreurs (2023). “Global Sustainable Cities: Berlin Aims at Climate Neutrality,” in Daniel Spiegel-Feld, Katrina Miriam Wyman, and John J. Coughlin, Global Sustainable Cities: City Governments and Our Environmental Future. New York: New York University Press. Chapter 13.

Schreurs, M. 2002. Environmental Politics in Japan, Germany, and the United States Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Abstract

Miranda Schreurs. 2022. “Energy and Climate Politics in the European Union in light of the Russian War on Ukraine,” (in Japanese) Sekai, No. 296, June 2022.

Miranda Schreurs. 2021. “Reconstruction and Revitalization in Fukushima a Decade after the ‘Triple Disaster’ Struck: Striving for Sustainability and a New Future Vision,” Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 53

Schreurs, MA, Suckow, J. 2019: "Bringing Transparency and Voice into the Search for a Deep Geological Repository: Nuclear Waste Governance in Germany and the Role of the National Civil Society Board - Nationales Begleitgremium (NBG)" in Achim Brunnengräber, Maria Rosaria Di Nucci, eds. Conflicts, Participation and Acceptability in Nuclear Waste Governance An International Comparison Volume III, 2019, 293-310.

Miranda Schreurs and Elim Papadakis (2019). Historical Dictionary of the Green Movement, 3rd ed. Rowman and Littlefield.

Awards

Honorary Doctorate für contributions to global environmental protection, Tel Aviv Univ. (Mai 2025)

Technical University of Munich Sustainability Award, 2023. 

Co-Chair, Citizen’s Oversight Committee Accompanying the Search for a High-level Radioactive Waste Repository (2016-2025)

China Council for International Environment and Development, Task Forces (2006-7, 2014, 2020-21, 2025-)

Elected Chair of German Representation to the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) (2025)

Erasmus Plus Teaching Grant to Tel Aviv Univ, Israel May 2018.

Erasmus Plus Teaching Grant to Hebrew Univ, Israel March 2018.

Sackler Fellowship for Eminent Scholars, Tel Aviv University (2016-2017)

Fulbright New Century Program Distinguished Scholar Leader (2009-2010)

University of Maryland System Regents’ Award for Inter-University System Collaboration on Teaching (2005)

Harold and Margaret Sprout Award - Honorable Mention, Environmental Studies Section, International Studies Association, Honorable Mention for Environmental Politics in Japan, Germany, and the United States, Cambridge University Press (2004)

SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Fellowship on International Peace and Security in a Changing World (1992-1994)