Maja Göpel

Göpel was nominated by the Alliance 90/The Greens as delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2022.

In 2019, Maja Göpel received the Adam Smith Prize, in 2020 the "Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitspreis des Bundesdeutschen Arbeitskreises für Umweltbewusstes Management (B.A.U.M)". In 2021, she was awarded the Erich Fromm Prize, the Theodor Heuss Prize as well as the Science Communication Medal of the Max Planck Society. Also in 2021, The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ranked her 17th among the 100 most influential German economists.

From 2006 to 2012, Göpel helped start the World Future Council as Campaign Manager Climate Energy in Hamburg and as Director Future Justice of the Brussels office, working in EU and UN contexts. From 2013 to 2017, she served as head of the Berlin office of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy with a focus on sustainability transformations. In 2016, she published her book The Great Mindshift: How a New Economic Paradigm and Sustainability Transformations Go Hand in Hand that summarizes research on system transformations, political economy and change management with an emphasis on a change in paradigms, mindsets (mentality) and competencies with which humans shape technical, economic, and social institutions. From 2017 to 2020, she was Secretary General of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), a body that advises the German government on shaping its policies towards sustainability. In 2019, she was appointed honorary professor at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Also in 2019, she co-founded the Scientists for Future initiative, which published a statement of thousands of scientists validating the claims of the Fridays for Future student protests. In February 2020, Göpel published the non-fiction book Unsere Welt neu denken. Eine Einladung (Ullstein Verlag), which became number 3 on the German annual bestseller list 2020. From 2020 to 2021, she was Director of Research of The New Institute, founded in Hamburg in 2020, before she decided to devote more time to science communication. End of 2021, she became visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges.

Göpel was born in Bielefeld. She received a diploma in media and communications from the University of Siegen in 2001 and her PhD in political economy from the University of Kassel in 2007. From 2003 to 2006, she had a PhD scholarship of the Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft [de], taught at the University of Hamburg and volunteered with the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND) in their work on globalisation and world trade.

Göpel is, among others, a member of the Bioeconomy Council of the German Federal Government, the International Club of Rome, the World Future Council, the Balaton Group founded by Donella Meadows and Dennis Meadows in 1982, and the German Commission for UNESCO, as well as of the Board of Trustees of WWF Germany, the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Natural History Berlin, and the advisory board of the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER) at University College London.

Maja Göpel (born 27 June 1976) is a German political economist, transformation researcher, and sustainability scientist with a focus on transdisciplinary work. As a speaker and author, she has increasingly specialised in science communication since 2019 when she co-founded the Scientists for Future initiative. Göpel is an honorary professor at Leuphana University of Lüneburg.