Karin Bäckstrand is a Professor in Environmental Social Science at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University, a senior researcher at the Institute for Future Studies, and a member of the Swedish Climate Policy Council. Her research revolves around the democratic legitimacy of global environmental politics, nonstate actors in climate change governance, and the role of public–private governance in sustainability governance. She previously held positions as Professor in Political Science, Lund University, visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, and Wallenberg fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She leads a new four-year research program funded by the Swedish research council on sustainable development and the role of multistakeholder partnerships in the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Her work has been published in journals such as Global Environmental Politics, the European Journal of International Relations, Global Environmental Change, Environmental Politics, and the Journal of European Public Policy. She coedited Rethinking the Green State: Environmental Governance towards Climate and Sustainability Transition (with Annica Kronsell, Routledge, 2015) and Research Handbook on Climate Governance (with Eva Lövbrand, Edward Elgar, 2015). Her recent publications include Legitimacy in Global Governance: Sources, Processes, and Consequences (coedited with Jonas Tallberg and Jan Aart Scholte, Oxford University Press, 2018), and Governing the Climate-Energy Nexus: Institutional Complexity and Its Challenges to Effectiveness and Legitimacy (coedited with Fari Zelli et al., Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Michael W. Bauer holds the Chair of Public Administration in the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Florence. He also served as the Chair for Comparative Public Administration and Policy Analysis at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer (2012–2020), at the Humboldt University of Berlin (2009–2012), and at the University of Konstanz, Germany (2004–2009). He received his Ph.D. from the European University Institute in 2000. His research focuses on European and international bureaucracy, populism and democratic administration, multilevel governance, and EU institutions. He publishes widely in international journals, among them the Public Administration Review, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration, the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Common Market Studies, the International Studies Review, the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, the European Journal of Political Research, and Governance.

Frank Biermann is a Professor of Global Sustainability Governance with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He is the Director of the GlobalGoals research program on the steering effects of the Sustainable Development Goals, supported by a European Research Council Advanced Grant; the founder and first Chair of the Earth System Governance Project, a global transdisciplinary research network; editor-in-chief of the journal Earth System Governance; and coeditor of three book series with Cambridge University Press and MIT Press. His recent books – all with Cambridge University Press – are Anthropocene Encounters: New Directions in Green Political Thinking (coedited, 2019); Architectures of Earth System Governance: Institutional Complexity and Structural Transformation (coedited, 2020); and The Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming Governance through Global Goals? (coedited, 2022). In 2021, the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association presented him with its Distinguished Scholar Award.

Pamela Chasek is Professor of Political Science at Manhattan College in New York. She is also the co-founder and Executive Editor of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a reporting service on United Nations environment and development negotiations. She has written about and followed United Nations sustainable development negotiations for more than thirty years. Her research focuses on multilateral environmental negotiations and international environmental governance as a means for countries and nonstate actors to address and resolve environmental problems at the international level. She is the author and editor of numerous articles and books, including The Roads from Rio: Lessons Learned from Twenty Years of Multilateral Environmental Negotiations (Routledge, 2012), Transforming Multilateral Diplomacy: The Inside Story of the Sustainable Development Goals (Routledge, 2018), and Global Environmental Politics, 8th edition (Routledge, 2021).

Steffen Eckhard is Professor of Public Administration and Public Policy at Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Germany. He is also a fellow at the Cluster of Excellence “Inequality” at the University of Konstanz and a non-resident fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. Focusing on the management of public organizations, particularly in the international realm, Steffen contributes to advancing theories of public organizations and their multifaceted interactions with society and politics. His findings have been featured in the leading journals and book publishers of public administration and political science, including his most recent book The Politics of Evaluation in International Organizations (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Jörn Ege is Lecturer of Local and Regional Governance at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland. He was a Principal Investigator for the project “The Consequences of Bureaucratic Autonomy for International Administrative Influence” based at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer (2017–2021). His research interest is in the field of comparative public administration and public policy. He is particularly interested in social and health policy and its implementation at different territorial levels.

Alexandra Goritz is a Policy Advisor on climate foreign policy at Germanwatch and a doctoral student at the Free University Berlin. She holds an M.Sc. in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. in Politics and Public Administration from the University of Konstanz. Her research is focused on the role of international organizations and their bureaucracies during global environmental negotiations. More specifically, she uses approaches involving social network analyses based on Twitter data to assess the authority of state and nonstate actors. She has published in Climatic Change, Global Environmental Politics, the International Review of Administrative Sciences, and the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice.

Nina Hall is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Her research explores the role of transnational advocacy and international organizations in international relations. Her latest book Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era (Oxford University Press, 2022) won the International Studies Association Best Book Award in International Communication in 2023, was shortlisted for the British International Studies Association Susan Strange Best Book Prize (2023), and received an honorable mention from the American Political Science Association Information Technology & Politics Best Book Award (2023). Her first book was Displacement, Development and Climate Change: International Organizations Moving beyond Their Mandates? (Routledge, 2016). She has published on climate change and international organizations in the European Journal of International Relations, Global Environmental Politics, and Global Governance. She previously worked as a lecturer at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and has a D.Phil. in International Relations from the University of Oxford. She is on the steering committee of an independent New Zealand think tank, Te Kuaka. She regularly publishes commentary in international media, including the Guardian, Die Zeit Online, the Washington Post, Project Syndicate, and The Conversation.

Thomas Hickmann is an Associate Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science of Lund University in Sweden. Prior to this, he was a postdoctoral researcher with the Environmental Governance group at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development of Utrecht University. His research deals with the global governance of global environmental changes and related transboundary sustainability challenges (such as biodiversity loss, climate change, and land degradation). He is co-convener of the taskforce on the Sustainable Development Goals of the Earth System Governance Project and served from 2015 to 2021 on the steering committee of the Environmental Politics and Global Change working group in the German Political Science Association. His most recent book, The Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming Governance through Global Goals? (coedited with Frank Biermann and Carole-Anne Sénit, Cambridge University Press, 2022), was published open access.

Helge Jörgens is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Policy at Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon and an integrated researcher at CIES-IUL, the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, Lisbon. He holds a Ph.D. from the Free University Berlin. He was Principal Investigator (together with Nina Kolleck) for the ENVIPA, CONNECT and TRANSPACE research projects on the role and influence of international environmental bureaucracies, supported by the German Research Foundation. His current research interests include environmental, energy, and climate policies, the role and influence of international public administrations, and the diffusion and transfer of public policies. His recent books are A Guide to EU Renewable Energy Policy: Comparing Europeanization and Domestic Policy Change in EU Member States (coedited, Edward Elgar, 2017), Understanding Environmental Policy Convergence: The Power of Words, Rules and Money (coedited, Cambridge University Press, 2014), and the Routledge Handbook of Environmental Policy (coedited, Routledge, 2023).

Christoph Knill is Chair of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Munich. He studied Public Administration and Political Science at the University of Konstanz and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Bielefeld in 1994. He was a research associate at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne (1994–1995), the European University Institute in Florence (1995–1998), and the Max Planck Project Group for the Study of Common Goods in Bonn (1998–2000). Before joining the department, he was Professor of Political Science at the Universities of Jena (2001–2004) and Konstanz (2004–2014). His main research interests lie in the areas of comparative policy analysis and comparative public administration. In this context, his main focus is on policymaking in the European Union and the analysis of processes of international policy convergence and policy diffusion, as well as research on policy implementation. With regard to these topics, his major thematic interest is environmental, social, and morality policies.

Nina Kolleck is Full Professor at the University of Potsdam, Germany. Prior to her current role, she held professorships at Leipzig University, RWTH Aachen University, and the Free University Berlin. Additionally, she has served as a visiting Professor at institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is Principal Investigator (together with Helge Jörgens) of the ENVIPA, CONNECT and TRANSPACE research projects on the role and influence of international environmental bureaucracies, supported by the German Research Foundation. She received an ERC grant in 2022 and the Award for Research Cooperation and Highest Excellence in Science from the Max Planck Society (2017–2018). She is a member of various scientific advisory boards, advises different federal ministries, and acts as an anonymous reviewer for central funding organizations. Her current research interests include social network analysis, the transnationalization of nonstate actors, and climate education and policies, as well as the diffusion and transfer of innovations. Her recent research has been published in journals such as the Journal of European Public Policy, Global Environmental Politics, the International Review of Administrative Sciences, the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, Social Networks, Environmental Politics, the Journal of Education Policy, Global Governance, Teaching and Teacher Education, the Journal of Educational Administration, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, Environmental Education Research, and the European Educational Research Journal.

Jonathan W. Kuyper is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo. Prior to this, he was an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University Belfast and has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School, Princeton University, and the European University Institute. His current research focuses on the role of nonstate actors in world politics, the nature of deliberation in international negotiations, and the democratic legitimacy of international organizations. He is currently working on these topics in the issue areas of climate change governance, international trade, and investment. His articles have appeared in journals such as the American Political Science Review, Global Environmental Politics, the European Journal of International Relations, the European Journal of Political Research, and Environmental Politics. His most recent coauthored book – Deliberative Global Governance – was published with Cambridge University Press in 2019.

Markus Lederer is a Professor of Political Science with a focus on International Relations at Technical University Darmstadt, Germany. His research interests cover international relations, security politics, and global climate politics; he focuses on the politics of green transformations in the Global South, the institutional aspects of setting up market mechanisms, and the role of forest governance. He currently leads a research project, “The Political Institutionalization of Climate Change Mitigation in Emerging Economies,” which is funded by the German Research Foundation. His most recent publications have appeared in Regulation & Governance, Environmental Politics, Ecological Economics, the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, the Journal of Energy Markets, Geopolitics, and the Journal of Environment and Development.

Axel Michaelowa is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Political Science of the University of Zurich, Research Director at the research institute Perspectives Climate Research, and Senior Founding Partner of the climate policy consultancy Perspectives. He was the lead author of the chapter on mitigation policies in the fourth and fifth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He has participated in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations since 1995 and served on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Registration and Issuance Team of the CDM Executive Board between 2006 and 2013. Axel has supported the Conference of the Parties presidencies of Qatar and Mexico and various country delegations in UNFCCC negotiations. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Adaptation Benefits Mechanism and a member of the board of the Climate Cent Foundation between 2005 and 2009. He has also worked on ten approved baseline methodologies and three approved standardized baselines under the CDM and engaged with capacity-building in over forty developing countries, ranging from Algeria to Yemen. He has been involved in work on nationally determined contributions and nationally appropriate mitigation actions in Algeria, Bhutan, India, Morocco, Peru, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Katharina Michaelowa is Professor of Political Economy and Development at the University of Zurich. She studied Economics at the University of Mannheim and at Delhi School of Economics. Before joining the University of Zurich, she held positions at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris and at the Hamburg Institute of International Economics. Her research focuses on the effectiveness of development cooperation as well as on the effectiveness of developing countries’ own policies. In this context, she also examines developing countries’ climate policies and their positions in international negotiations, as well as the role of national and international administrations and governance structures.

Philipp Pattberg is a Professor of Transnational Environmental Governance and Policy Head of the Environmental Policy Analysis Department at the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is Director of the interfaculty Amsterdam Sustainability Institute, a platform for interdisciplinary and transformative research at the university. His research interests include governing oceans, climate, and biodiversity, and questions around institutional complexity and change. His recent books are the Encyclopedia of Environmental Governance and Politics (coedited, Edward Elgar, 2015), Environmental Politics and Governance in the Anthropocene (coedited, Routledge, 2016), and The Anthropocene Debate and Political Science (coedited, Routledge, 2018).

Barbara Saerbeck works for Agora Energiewende as Senior Associate Key Questions, focusing on national and European policy. Previously, she analyzed the German electricity, gas, and heat markets at the Federation of German Consumer Advocacy Organizations as a consultant. In the course of her work in the ENVIPA research project on international climate and biodiversity policy at the Free University Berlin she used social network analyses, among others, to examine the influence of state and nonstate actors on international negotiations. The ENVIPA project was part of the research unit International Public Administrations, funded by the German Research Foundation. She studied Political and Administrative Sciences in Konstanz, Prague, and Brussels as well as International Relations in Berlin and Potsdam. In her dissertation for the Environmental Policy Research Centre of the Free University of Berlin she investigated the influence of the European Environmental Agency on European decision-making processes. She is also a lecturer at the Berlin School of Economics and Law.

Johannes Schuster is a Research Associate at Leipzig University in Germany. He was also a member of the CONNECT project that aimed to systematically analyze the influence of international treaty secretariats in global networks. His research focuses on international organizations in global governance, policy networks, social network analysis, and the diffusion of social innovations. In his dissertation he examined the roles of intergovernmental and nonstate actors in the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and inclusive education. He studied Educational Science and Educational Research at the University of Jena and the Free University Berlin, obtaining his Ph.D. from the latter institution. His research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, the Journal of Education Policy, and Teaching and Teacher Education.

Lynn Wagner is Senior Director of the Tracking Progress program at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), where she oversees projects that seek to increase the accountability of decision-making for the Sustainable Development Goals and to support the implementation of the goals. Wagner began working with IISD in 1994 as a writer for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin and she continues to observe and analyze multilateral environmental negotiations for IISD’s flagship publication. She teaches classes on bargaining and negotiation as an Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Her research and publications focus on the relationship between negotiation processes, outcomes, and justice. Her publications include “The Role of Issues in Negotiation: Framing, Linking, and Ordering” (coauthored, Negotiation Journal, 2021), “Justice Matters: Peace Negotiations, Stable Agreements, and Durable Peace” (coauthored, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2017), and The Roads from Rio: Lessons Learned from Twenty Years of Multilateral Environmental Negotiations (coedited, Routledge, 2012).

Mareike Well is a Ph.D. candidate at the Free University Berlin. She works in the office of the Minister of State for Europe and Climate in the German Federal Foreign Office on international and European climate policy and climate diplomacy. Previously, she was a research fellow in the ENVIPA project and worked for the German Advisory Council on the Environment as well as for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. Her research interests include multilateral negotiations on climate change, biodiversity, and educational issues, as well as the role of international public administrations in global environmental governance. Her recent publications have appeared in Global Governance, Global Environmental Politics, and Climate Policy.

Oscar Widerberg is Deputy Department Head and Associate Professor in Environmental Policy and Politics in the Environmental Policy Analysis section at the Institute for Environmental Studies at the Free University Amsterdam. His research focuses on the role of cities, regions, companies, and other nonstate and subnational actors in global governance. His work has been featured in academic articles, books, policy reports, and opinion pieces, including in Nature Climate Change, Environmental Politics, and Millennium. In 2019, he was the lead author of the United Nations Environment Programme gap report chapter and the standalone report on nonstate and subnational climate action. Prior to joining the Institute for Environmental Studies, he worked in consulting, advising international public authorities, primarily European institutions, on energy, environment, and climate policies.