Fedra Vanhuyse

Fedra Vanhuyse is Head of the Division ‘Societies, Climate and Policy Support’ and Senior Research Fellow.

As Head of the Division, Fedra leads researchers and project managers in three teams: Cities, Communities, and Consumption; Environmental Policy and Strategy; and Water, Coasts, and Ocean. She supports the Executive Director as a member of SEI’s Executive Team and its Global Management Committee. As project owner, she oversees several Sida-funded projects, including BiH ESAP, BiH Sutra, the GUMA project, and the gridless initiative. These projects aim to support governments in Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, Georgia, India, Moldova, and Ukraine with resolving sustainability challenges.

As a Senior Research Fellow, Fedra has acquired over 102 million SEK in research funding for SEI. She directs the Financing Urban Transitions programme, investigating how to mobilise and redirect public and private funding to achieve more sustainable, just, and resilient cities. She also leads research on the impact of climate risk on macroeconomic financial stability. She ensures that the “people” side of transitions is considered. For example, two of her projects, the Vinnova-funded Urban Circularity Assessment Framework and the Horizon Europe-funded project C-sink on carbon dioxide removal technologies, entail studies on transitions’ social impact and acceptability.

Since April 2022, she has been appointed Finance and Procurement Strategist for the Swedish Strategic Innovation Programme Viable Cities. As of May 2023, she is a Stockholm City’s Agenda2030 Council member, supporting elected politicians and public officials with sustainability-related issues.

Before joining SEI and its research community, Fedra’s career included supporting social economy enterprises and programmes in Belgium (2005-2007) and heading the Decent Work in Asia programme from the Philippines, working with labour rights movements in eight Asian countries (2007-2012). She worked with governments, trade unions and social movements on capacity building and monitoring and evaluation systems in Cambodia, India, and Rwanda. In 2012, she moved to the UK for her doctoral studies. During her time in the UK, she led research on Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact Assessments for the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich (2012-2013), managed European Programmes for a municipal government (2013-2015) and led value-for-money evaluations for the National Audit Office (2015-2018). While seconded to the UK House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (2016-2018), she led several parliamentary inquiries on various environmental topics.

Fedra is a frequent speaker and presenter in sustainable cities, climate finance and just transition. She has authored over fifty peer-reviewed journal articles and reports. She holds a PhD in Agricultural and Food Economics from the University of Reading, UK; an M.A. in Conflict and Development from the University of Ghent, Belgium; and an M.Sc. in Applied Economics from the University of Leuven, Belgium. She is certified in project management (Prince2) and contract and commercial management (IACCM).