Müller, Franziska

“My identity as a scientist is shaped by the urge to contribute to socio-ecological transformations through research and to help ensure our collective ecological survival. I see myself as a committed scientist and scholar activist with roots in the anti-nuclear and climate justice movements. My understanding of research is shaped by an interest in reconstructing and exposing discursive constellations and power relations, addressing questions of social-ecological and political justice, particularly in the fields of climate, energy, and environmental justice, as well as in postcolonial and decolonial contexts.”

• Anthropocene, ecological collapse, and political ecology
• Energy transition and energy justice
• Energy colonialism, green colonialism, and green extractivism
• Development theories and development cooperation
• Green hydrogen
• Green finance
• Postcolonial/decolonial studies
• Qualitative methods
• Social-ecological transformation and transformation conflicts
• Western and Southern Africa

• Studied political science, cultural anthropology, and economics at the Universities of Tübingen, Birmingham, and Frankfurt
• 2007–2010 Scholarship holder of the Heinrich Böll Foundation; doctoral program “Global Social Policies & Governance,” University of Kassel
• 2009 Visiting researcher at the University of Pretoria; research stay at Yale University
• 2013 Doctorate “In the Name of Liberal Norms? Governmentality and Normative Power in EU-ACP Relations,” doctoral program Global Social Policies & Governance and TU Darmstadt
• 2010-2014 Research assistant at TU Darmstadt and at the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders” with Prof. Dr. Michèle Knodt and Prof. Dr. Jens Steffek; coordination of the VW joint project “Challenges of External Energy Governance with Emerging Powers”
• 2014-2017 Research assistant at the University of Kassel, Department of Globalization and Politics
• Research stays in South Africa and Zambia; visiting scholar at the University of Cape Coast/Ghana
• 2017-2023 Head of the BMBF junior research group “GLOCALPOWER – Funds, Tools and Networks for an African Energy Transition”; research stays in South Africa, Zambia, and Ghana
• 2023 Senior Fellow at the University of Sussex, Centre for Advanced International Theory
• 2020-2025 Junior Professor for Globalization and Governance of Climate Policy, University of Hamburg
• Since March 2025 Professor of International Development at the University of Vienna