The 47th TB Macaulay Lecture - with Professor Frank Biermann

The TB Macaulay Lecture aims to connect scientific evidence with civic society on the big issues affecting our land and people and specifically to reach those who influence and make decisions on policy.

This year we are honoured to welcome leading scholar of global sustainability governance, Professor Frank Biermann.

Planetary politics: Rethinking governance for a changing world

Professor Frank Biermann, one of the world’s leading scholars of global sustainability governance, will deliver this year’s Macaulay Lecture, introducing a new framework for understanding politics in the planetary age: planetary politics.

Biermann is the founder and first chair of the global Earth System Governance research alliance. Launched twenty years ago, this initiative has grown into a worldwide community of more than 600 researchers, hosting major annual conferences, supporting book series with MIT Press and Cambridge University Press, publishing a high‑ranking academic journal and coordinating influential international research initiatives. In 2024, Biermann was the first political scientist to receive the prestigious Volvo Environment Prize, “for defining new pathways for international environmental governance in a period of global change”.

In this lecture, Professor Biermann will explore why traditional approaches to environmental governance are no longer sufficient in a world marked by accelerating climate impacts, geopolitical tension, democratic backsliding and persistent inequalities. He will outline how planetary politics offers a fresh way to understand and navigate the profound transformations shaping our future and how plurilateral coalitions of like-minded countries can succeed even when global consensus is out of reach.

The lecture will also highlight his extensive research on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - with a particular focus on the critical period leading to 2030, when the current framework expires and new global goals must be negotiated.

Attendees can expect:

• A compelling introduction to the emerging concept of planetary politics
• Big‑picture insights combined with recent empirical research
• Reflections on the future of global sustainability governance
• A timely look at what’s at stake as the world approaches the 2030 SDG milestone

Professor Biermann’s lecture promises to be a thought‑provoking, wide‑ranging exploration of environmental politics at a moment of historic planetary change.

All are welcome to attend.

Date: Wednesday 21st October 2026

Venue: National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Programme of events

18:30 - Pre-lecture exhibition

19:30 - 47th TB Macaulay Lecture

21:00 - Post-lecture reception

The event is free to attend. Please register now to reserve a seat.

Background to the TB Macaulay lecture

The annual TB Macaulay lecture is held to honour the vision of Dr Thomas Bassett Macaulay, President and chairman of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, whose benefaction founded the original Macaulay Institute for Soil Research in 1930. He was a descendant of the Macaulays from the Island of Lewis and his aim was to improve the productivity of Scottish Agriculture. This vision continues today in its successor The James Hutton Institute, a world-leader in land, crop, water, environmental and socio-economics science.

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