Institute’s Timo Leiter wins ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize 2024

Distinguished Policy Fellow, Dr Timo Leiter has been awarded the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Celebrating Impact Prize 2024 in the Outstanding Early Career Impact category. The Prize, now in its 12th year, recognises and rewards ESRC-funded researchers who have achieved impact through exceptional research, knowledge exchange activities, collaborative partnerships and community engagement. The 2024 award was presented to Timo at the Royal Society in London on 20 November.

Timo was awarded for his project Better prepared: new global targets strengthen climate adaptation and resilience. Timo’s ESRC-funded doctoral studies examined whether and how countries are tracking the implementation of their national adaptation plans and explored the potential and shortcomings of global indicators. Based on his research, Timo was invited by the UNFCCC secretariat to co-facilitate the workshop series that developed the first set of global adaptation targets that was adopted at COP28 in November 2023. Timo also co-designed the first comprehensive global assessment of adaptation: UN Environment Programme’s Adaptation Gap Report, of which he is a lead author. He currently serves as the co-lead of an expert group for the development of global adaptation indicators. Read more about Timo’s policy impact.