Frank Geels

Frank Geels is Eddie Davies Professor of Sustainability Transitions at the Alliance Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester. Prior to his current appointment, he held positions at SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit) at the University of Sussex (UK), the Brunel Business School at Brunel University (UK), and Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands). He holds a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Stockholm School of Economics from July 2025 to June 2026.

Geels is a world-leading scholar on socio-technical sustainability transitions, which involve deep transformations in energy, mobility and agri-food systems resulting from interactions of new technologies, policies, business strategies, public debates and consumer behaviour. Geels’s work combines insights from innovation studies, evolutionary economics, institutional theory, and political science. He is particularly well-known for his conceptual and empirical work on the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) and Strategic Niche Management (SNM). He has analysed a dozen historical transitions as well as contemporary low-carbon transitions in multiple domains and countries.

Geels published 7 books and 119 peer-reviewed journal articles, including in Science (2x), Nature Climate Change (3x), the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (5x), Research Policy (17x) and Technological Forecasting and Social Change (14x). He received multiple awards and honours, and was selected in the 2014, 2019-2025 Highly Cited Researchers lists.

Geels was a lead author of the Working Group III contribution to the 2022 IPCC report, a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency (2016-2024), and has written invited reports for the European Commission, OECD, World Bank, European Environment Agency, and the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.