Welcome to my website! 

My research explores the intersection between environmental governance, rural development, and democratic politics in rural India. At present, I am an Associate Professor (Docent) in the Department of Urban and Rural Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala.

*** New article:
Fischer, H.W., Chhatre, A., Duddu, A. Pradhan, N, Agrawal, A. 2023. Community forest governance and synergies among carbon, biodiversity and livelihoods. Nature Climate Change.

Currently, I am involved in several funded projects:

• "Can community forest governance improve rural prosperity and well-being from forest restoration?" funded by FORMAS, 2023-2026 (4 million Swedish Kronor, €400,000) Fischer as lead investigator.
• “Building synergies between biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and rural prosperity through community forest governance” funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), 2023-2026 (4.5 million Swedish Kronor, €450,000) Fischer as lead investigator.
• “Institutional networks and self-organized adaptation: Tracing the democratic architectures of climate response” funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), 2019-2021 (5.6 million Swedish Kronor, €560,000) as project lead (with Divya Gupta, Dil Khatri, and Forrest Fleischman)
• ​ “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Forest Resource Use by Rural Communities in India”, funded by FORMAS (Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development) Urgent Grant (2020-21): 1.2 million Swedish Kronor (€120,000), as lead investigator.
• “Creating evidence for forest based resilience during COVID-19”, funded by FORMAS (Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development) Special call ‘Societal effects and opportunities for transition after Covid-19’ (2020-21): 1 million Swedish Kronor (€100,000) for project,  as lead investigator. 
• "Impacts of Afforestation on Sustainable Rural Livelihoods in India" funded by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USA, 2017-20 ($750,000) as co-investigator (project led by PI Forrest Fleischman, University of Minnesota)
• FORMAS (Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development) (2021-2024): 4 million Swedish Kronor (€400,000) “How forest management, disturbance and restoration affect below-ground diversity and ecosystem functioning”. Project led by Mohammad Bahram (Department of Ecology, SLU).

Previously, I was a New Generation Network (NGN) Fellow at the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne (2016-2017) and a Research Fellow in Public Policy at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (2015-2016). During this time, I worked with the Revitalizing Rainfed Agricultural Network (RRA) on a large research program examining public support systems for rainfed livelihoods in several central Indian states. I was also involved in the Sentinel Landscapes research project, a global multi-collaborator effort studying forest governance, rural production systems, and multiple dimensions of human well-being, led by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

I completed my PhD in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in December 2014.

For more information, see details of my research here on Weebly.

​Alternatively, click to view my Google Scholar Profile, my ResearchGate Profile, or my staff profile at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. 

Harry Fischer, Photographer Anna Edlund