About

Dr Karen Bell currently researches Just Transition, environmental justice and environmental politics. Since 2008, she has been investigating and teaching at the intersection of political, geographical and environmental studies at the University of Bristol, University of Keele, University of the West of England and now the University of Glasgow. She was awarded a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2014 and, from 2016-2019, she was an ESRC Future Research Leader Fellow. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2022.

Prior to 2008, Karen was a community development coordinator, working alongside disadvantaged communities to address issues such as social inequality, racism, disability discrimination, and environmental exclusion and inequity. From there, she gradually moved into community and environmental research. In 2011, she completed her PhD on Environmental Justice at the University of Bristol.

Since then, she has carried out a number of related research projects. This has included work on ‘Achieving Environmental Justice’ which analysed and compared environmental justice strategies and outcomes in a variety of political, economic and cultural settings, including the US, UK, South Korea, Sweden, China, Bolivia and Cuba. More recent work on ‘Fair and Inclusive Social and Environmental Transition Alternatives’ continues this comparative theme, while emphasising transition paradigms i.e. ‘Green Economy’ and ‘Living Well’ (Vivir Bien). She has also recently carried out qualitative work on ‘Working-Class Environmentalism’ which looks at how to build an environmental movement that is attractive to a wider range of social groups. Her most recent research is at the intersection of Labour and Sustainability studies, in collaboration with Trade Unions.

She has been a Visiting Research Fellow with the United Nations Research Institute on Social Development (2018), the Asian Institute of Energy, Environment and Sustainability (2017) and the Latin American Faculty of Social Science (2023).

Her research has been funded primarily by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the British Academy (BA).