Vera Trappmann

Vera Trappmann is a Professor of Comparative Employment Relations at the Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, where she is also Director of Sustainability and a member of the Executive Board of the Priestley International Centre for Climate. She joined the university in 2015 as an Associate Professor and has since advanced to full Professor. Her work spans multiple interdisciplinary domains, linking employment relations, sustainability, and climate change.

Her educational background includes a PhD from the European University Viadrina, an MA in Russian and East European Studies from Stanford University, and a Diplom in Sociology from Bielefeld University. She held postdoctoral positions at FSU Jena, Osnabrück University, and Duisburg-Essen University, and has been an invited international visitor to institutions in Poland, France, and Germany.

Trappmann’s research centers on comparative employment relations, with a strong focus on precarious work, trade unions, organizational restructuring, and the intersection of labour and environmental sustainability. She investigates how workers, particularly young people and those in platform economies, experience and resist precarity. Her work also explores the role of trade unions in climate justice and just transitions to a low-carbon economy. She leads interdisciplinary research networks at Leeds that connect economics, employment, and environmental studies.

Her recent publications and projects reflect a consistent engagement with socio-economic transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, platform labour protest, and the global politics of just transition. She developed the Leeds Index of Platform Labour Protest and leads projects funded by the Hans-Böckler Foundation and Research England. Her research has been supported by major funders including UKRI, the European Commission, DFG, and various national foundations.

She is actively involved in academic service, serving on the international advisory board of Work, Employment and Society, the editorial board of Warsaw Forum of Economic Sociology, and as Topic Editor for Sustainability. She also contributes to public policy through roles in the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission Research & Evidence Panel and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Transforming the Foundation Industries Network.

Trappmann supervises multiple PhD students and teaches across HRM programs, including modules on sustainable futures, global employment relations, and business and society. She has previously served as Deputy Director of the MA Human Resource Management programme. Her teaching philosophy emphasizes critical thinking and challenging dominant assumptions about work and society.

• Professor of Comparative Employment Relations, Leeds University Business School
• Director of Sustainability, LUBS
• Member, Executive Board, Priestley International Centre for Climate
• Editorial Board, Work, Employment and Society
• Topic Editor, Sustainability