


Dirk Arne Heyen
Senior Researcher
Environmental Law & Governance
Special Expertise
Research focus: Sustainability transitions and political governance options
- Sociotechnical transitions / transformations
- Exnovation, structural change, ‘just transition’
- Sustainable consumption, incl. sufficiency
- Social and regulatory innovations
- Real-world labs and civic participation
Key Projects
- Transformation strategies and models of change for sustainable societal change
- Developing core elements of a concept of transformative environmental policy
- Trafo 3.0: Model for governing social-ecological transformation processes in practice
- Strategies for ecologically-driven structural change towards a Green Economy
- Exnovation governance: Organizing the phase-out of non-sustainable patterns and policies
- Regulatory Experimental Spaces for the Reflective and Adaptive Governance of Innovations
- Sufficiency: concept, necessity, potentials and political steering opportunities
- Research coordination of the BMBF funding initiative "Environmentally and socially compatible transformation of the German energy system"
Professional Training and Career
- Since 09/2011: Research fellow at Öko-Institut
- 2010-2011: Postgraduate studies ‘MSc Environmental Regulation‘ at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); Master thesis: “The influence of the EU’s chemicals regulation on the US policy reform debate: ‘California effect’ or out of REACH?”
- 2010: Research fellow at the University of Potsdam
- 2004-2009: Studies of political science at the University of Potsdam (including an exchange year at the Université Montpellier I); Diploma (Master equivalent) with distinction; Diploma thesis: “Negotiations between government and business as a basis for policy termination: An analysis of political steering capacity with regard to the phasing-out of nuclear energy and black coal subsidies”
Dirk A. Heyen has published articles in several academic journals (e.g., ‘Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning‘ and ‘Transnational Environmental Law’).
Language Skills
German, English, French