Josef Kaiser

Dr. Josef Kaiser is a postdoctoral researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ (since 2024) and a guest researcher at the Landscape Ecology Lab, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (since 2024). His work focuses on environmental governance and collective action for social-ecological transformations, analyzing how property regimes, commodification processes, and power structures affect environmental policy outcomes.

His research spans both urban and rural contexts, with significant contributions to the Urban Transformations towards Blue-Green Infrastructures project and the uVITAL initiative. He has collaborated with institutions like the Stockholm Resilience Centre and contributed to major publications including the Faktencheck Artenvielfalt report and the REGREEN NBS Handbook.

• Current affiliation: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
• Previous affiliations: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (PhD, 2019-2024), Stockholm University (visiting scholar)

Research Trends from his 15 most recent articles (2018-2025) show:

• 12 articles on Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and commodification analysis
• 9 papers addressing urban resilience and nature-based solutions
• 7 publications examining land tenure systems and property diversity
• 5 contributions to climate adaptation policies in housing estates
• 4 articles on transdisciplinary research methods in environmental projects
• 3 studies analyzing human-wildlife conflicts in conservation efforts

Scientific Contributions include

• Co-authorship in Ecology and Society, Ecological Economics, and Journal of Environmental Management
• Key role in the Helmholtz project on Urban Transformations
• Methodological expertise in mixed-methods research and transdisciplinary approaches