Florence Damiens

Dr, NJ, Agricultural Entomology Unit

E-mail

Presentation

Florence is a social scientist at the Department of Ecology. She bridges political sciences and biodiversity conservation to study how politics affect biodiversity and its conservation.

Research

Her research focuses on how competing political discourses and modes of governance name, govern and affect biodiversity and its conservation.

Within the EU Horizon-2020 Safeguard and the Horizon Europe VALOR projects, she investigates the role that discursive dynamics play in supporting change for pollinators at the European level and in keeping pollinator-unfriendly practices in place.

In parallel, Florence also works on the politics of biodiversity offsetting.

Main research areas:

· Conservation social sciences

· Political sciences

· Political ecology

Research projects

Educational credentials

Florence holds a Bachelor in Political Sciences from Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), a Master in Economics and Public Policy from Sciences Po and École Polytechnique (France) and a PhD thesis from RMIT University (Australia). She has worked with various stakeholders in the fields of environment and biodiversity conservation in Australia, the Middle-East and Europe.

Selected publications

Gionfra, S., et al. (2025). 'Towards pollinator-friendly policy and practices: Worldviews, opportunities and barriers'. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14904853

Uwingabire, Z. et al. (2025) 'Worldviews and values of key societal actors influencing decision-1022 making around nature: The case of wild pollinator conservation in Europe', People and Nature. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.70035

Damiens FLP (2024) 'Governing Development, Governing Conservation: A Genealogy of Biodiversity Offset Politics Across Scales and Time' [thesis]. https://doi.org/10.25439/rmt.27677076

Damiens et al. (2022) ‘Professionalisation and the spectacle of nature: understanding changes in the visual imaginaries of private protected area organisations in Australia’, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/251484862211294

Coffey et al. (2022) ‘Assessing biodiversity policy designs in Australia, France and Sweden. Comparative lessons for transformative governance of biodiversity?’, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2022.2117145.

Damiens, FLP et al. (2021) ‘Governing for “no net loss” of biodiversity over the long term: challenges and pathways forward’, One Earth. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.12.012.

Damiens, FLP et al. (2020) ‘The politics of biodiversity offsetting across time and institutional scales’, Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-00636-9.