Frank Geels, a professor of system innovation and sustainability at the University of Manchester, spoke at the first Nobel Prize Summit ‘Our Planet, Our Future’ organised by the Nobel Foundation and other high-level organisations. Frank was a panellist in the Science Session on the theme: Breakthroughs in Technologies and Social Innovations for Resilient Societies and Global Sustainability, which was designed as a scientific discussion on global sustainability challenges in the context of a global pandemic.
Biography - Prof Frank Geels
Frank Geels is a professor of system innovation and sustainability at the University of Manchester. Geels is a world-leading scholar on sustainability transitions in energy, mobility, buildings, and agri-food systems. He is well known for his work on the Multi-Level Perspective, which conceptualises the main processes of change using insights from evolutionary economics, innovation studies, institutional theory, and political science. He published 6 books and 83 peer-reviewed articles, including in Science, Nature Climate Change, and Global Environmental Change, and was selected in the Highly Cited Researchers list (2014, 2019, 2020). Geels is a lead author of the Working Group III contribution to the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Agenda for Economic Growth and Recovery.
Event Information - Nobel Prize Summit ‘Our Planet, Our Future’
An virtual event on 26-28 April 2021
Our future depends on our collective ability to become effective stewards of the global commons – the climate, ice, land, ocean, fresh water, forests, soils and rich diversity of life.
The first Nobel Prize Summit brought together Nobel Prize laureates, scientists, policy makers, business leaders, and youth leaders to explore the question: What can be achieved in this decade to put the world on a path to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity?
Across three days, the virtual event combined keynotes and lively discussion with live performance and theatre. Speakers explored solutions to some of humanity’s greatest challenges: climate change and biodiversity loss, increasing inequality, and technological innovation in support of societal goals.
The summit asked: what can we learn from our collective response to the global pandemic? And, how can societies distinguish facts from fiction in a new information ecosystem?
