Harry W. Fischer 

With a focus on forests, water, and food production, my research explores how to link global environmental goals with more thriving rural societies. As a social scientist by training, I am especially interested in how environmental policy and governance can be made more responsive to rural needs, sociocultural values, and local lived realities. 

At present, I am an Associate Professor (Docent) in the Department of Forest Ecology and Management at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Current funded projects
  • "Pathways forward with the European Union Nature Restoration Law" (with the Swedish Forest Agency) funded by FORMAS 2025-2027.
  • “Building synergies between biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and rural prosperity through community forest governance” Research in India & Nepal. Funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), 2023-2026.
  • "Can community forest governance improve rural prosperity and well-being from forest restoration?" Research in India. Funded by FORMAS, 2023-2026.

See my Google Scholar Profile


​From the global to the local --
​I study how more people-centered environmental action can help solve sustainability challenges.

Left - Video from my recent 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.

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 India. I was also involved in the Sentinel Landscapes research project, a global multi-collaborator effort studying forest governance and rural livelihood systems, led by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). I hold a PhD from the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2014).

For more information, see my Google Scholar Profile, my ResearchGate Profile, or my staff profile at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. ​