Åsa Persson appointed UNEP Chief Scientist

Åsa Persson has been appointed Chief Scientist and Director of the Office of Science at the United Nations Environment Programme. She takes up the post in mid-October, leading the Office of Science and joining UNEP’s senior management team. She spent the past year at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology’s Climate Action Centre, having served as Research Director and Deputy Director at SEI for seven years.

“We are immensely proud and excited for both Åsa and UNEP,” says SEI Executive Director Eeva Primmer. “During her years at SEI, Åsa led and contributed to a large number of significant environmental and sustainability processes with frontier science and a wonderfully professional approach to managing the science-policy interface globally.”

After her PhD in 2007, Åsa spent more than 15 years at SEI, serving as researcher, theme leader and head of unit before taking up the Research Director and Deputy Director role in 2018. She was part of SEI’s global leadership team for seven years, chaired the Global Research Committee, and developed the research strategy across two five-year organizational strategies. She introduced new processes for research quality and innovation, and was responsible for partnerships and external engagement.

Her own research has focused on the interplay between international and national policy for climate and sustainability, including the governance of climate adaptation, policy coherence between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, and the planetary boundaries framework, which she was involved in developing.

There is a neat symmetry to the appointment. UNEP was established as a direct outcome of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, and 50 years later Åsa was among the authors of Stockholm+50: unlocking a better future, the independent scientific report written to provide an evidence base for the UN’s Stockholm+50 meeting in June 2022. The report set out three societal shifts, three structural barriers to remove and 52 concrete recommendations. Åsa presented its findings at the meeting itself, pressing delegates in Leadership Dialogue 2 to commit to action and be accountable for following it up.

She has advised the UN in several capacities. In 2020 she was appointed by the Secretary-General to the Independent Group of 15 Scientists that prepared the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report, and she sits on the UN Committee for Development Policy and the High-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs. She has chaired the Swedish Climate Policy Council since 2023, and in 2025 was named the most influential person in climate and sustainability in Sweden by Aktuell Hållbarhet.

“Since Åsa left SEI, she has continued to put her competencies into use as the chair of the Swedish Climate Policy Council and as a scientist at KTH,” Primmer says. “I am sure she will have a lot to give in leading the vast range of science functions that UNEP manages and mobilize to support decision-making.”