Professor Joern Birkmann is head of the institute of spatial planning and regional development at the University Stuttgart in Germany. His research focuses on methods and tools to assess and strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacities of urban and rural areas, infrastructures and particularly vulnerable groups to extreme events and climate change. 
He examines dynamics and linkages of cities and climate within the ERC funded Synergy Grant project URBISPHERE. He has served as a coordinating lead author for the 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was presented to governments in March 2022. He is one of the coordinators of a scientific project of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research that supports the reconstruction process following the deadly floods in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate in summer 2021.
Professor Joern Birkmann has published more than 100 scientific publications.