Unpacking Polycentric Climate Governance: Tracing the Evolution of Transnational Municipal Networks over Time

Kristine Kern is a professor at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space in Erkner, Germany (research group “Urban Sustainability Transformations”). She is also affiliated with Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. She holds a PhD in political science from Freie Universität Berlin and has also worked at the Berlin Social Science Center and the Universities of Potsdam (Germany), Wageningen (the Netherlands), Södertörn (Sweden), and Minnesota (Minneapolis, United States). Her research concentrates on environmental governance, climate governance, and sustainability transformations in multilevel systems, including transnational governance of cities and regions.

Peter Eckersley is an associate professor in public policy and management at Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom. At the time of writing this article, he was also a research associate in the research group “Urban Sustainability Transformations” at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Erkner, Germany. His research focuses on local climate policy, central–local relations, public accountability, and the power dynamics involved in policymaking decisions. He holds a PhD in political science from Newcastle University, and his work has appeared in a range of politics, public policy, human geography, accounting, environmental science, and public management journals.

Elisa Kochskämper is a postdoctoral researcher in the research group “Urban Sustainability Transformations” at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Erkner, Germany. She holds a PhD in political science, which she completed at Leuphana University Lüneburg. After her master’s studies at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich (political science), she worked with the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) in the Mexican Environmental Ministry in Mexico City. She has also worked at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and the University of Potsdam. Her research focuses on local environmental governance and covers topics such as urban resilience and sustainability, social justice, municipal decarbonization policies, and urban experimentation.

Wolfgang Haupt holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography (Dresden University of Technology) and a PhD in urban studies (Sasso Science Institute L’Aquila and Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies Pisa). Wolfgang regularly teaches at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya and the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg and has conducted research visits to IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (2017) and the University of Cardiff (2023). His research focuses primarily on the urban level. Currently it mainly includes climate governance (climate change mitigation and adaptation), resilience, and material and immaterial cultural and world heritage and its significance for urban development.