Dr Yixian SUN is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Development at the University of Bath. He holds a Ph.D. and Master's degree in International Relations / Political Science, from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, and was Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. He is a Research Fellow of the Earth System Governance (ESG) Project and a co-convenor of the ESG taskforce on SDGs. He is also a non-resident fellow of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy.
His research has been funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Network for International Studies, the UK Global Challenges Research Fund, and the International Studies Association.
His research seeks to explain the changing role of China in global environmental governance, including sustainability transitions within China as well as sustainability impacts of China's overseas engagement. His current projects focus on sustainability governance of China's Belt and Road Initiative. His work has been published in Ecological Economics, Global Environmental Change, Global Environmental Politics, Global Food Security, Nature Food, Review of International Political Economy and other international scientific journals (see my Google Scholar page). His first book Certifying China investigates China's engagement in transnational sustainability certification and was published by the MIT Press in Feburary 2022 (Earth System Governance Series). He is an associate editor of the journal Global Enviornmental Politics since 2022. since 2022.