OSLO, February 23rd 2018 – Professor Johan Rockström, member of EAT’s Board of Trustees and Chair of its Advisory Board, has announced that he will step down as Director of Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) in October 2018. SRC is EAT’s science partner and one of its founders. Rockström will become joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), based in Germany, together with PIK’s current deputy director Professor Ottmar Edenhofer. PIK is one of Europe’s leading centers for climate change and sustainability research.
Rockström will continue to serve on EAT’s Board of Trustees for the immediate future and lead its Advisory Board. Discussions are already underway to expand EAT’s scientific partnership with SRC to include the Potsdam Institute.
We look forward to collaborating with both SRC and the Potsdam Institute on the impacts global change has on food, ecological, economic and social systems.Gunhild A. Stordalen
Rockström will also keep working closely with SRC’s leadership and researchers, leading several major research projects at Stockholm University, and will remain a focal point for several strategic SRC collaborations such as the Global Resilience Partnership.
“SRC has developed a strong institutional resilience with a broad and growing new generation of researchers. We have grown by more than four-fold and established ourselves as a world leading academic environment at the frontier of sustainability science and complex systems research. We have succeeded in becoming an international convener between science, policy, practice and business. Now when we embark on our second decade, I feel it is time to leave room for a new leadership,” Rockström says.
His new position will strengthen the already close collaboration between the SRC and PIK on global sustainability science, planetary boundaries and global commons.
“This is a tremendously exciting opportunity for Johan as one of the world’s leading scientists on sustainability issues,” says Gunhild A. Stordalen, President and Founder of EAT. “Johan has played a central role in EAT’s five-year history, from our beginnings as a small initiative to becoming the global platform for food systems transformation. We are delighted that he will remain closely involved in EAT’s work and going forward, we look forward to collaborating with both SRC and the Potsdam Institute on the impacts global change has on food, ecological, economic and social systems.”
Stockholm University will appoint a new director in consultation with the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, Mistra. The process will be led by SRC’s international board. Rockström has served four three-year periods as SRC’s director since its establishment in 2007.