Swenja Surminski

Biography

 Swenja is a Senior Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, part of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is Programme Leader for the ‘climate risk, insurance and private sector’ work-stream at the institute, overseeing research projects from a multi-disciplinary field. Her research focuses on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction with a special interest in the role of the private sector. The geographic scope of her works spans from the United Kingdom across the European Union to developing countries. Swenja is the GRI-lead in the Costing Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in Ireland project, in collaboration with University College Cork and funded by the Environmental Protection Agency in Ireland. She is the PI of the new LSE IGA/Rockefeller project ‘Insurance as a tool for financial and climate resilience?  Using innovations in subjective measures to explore how climate insurance can improve resilience of the world’s poor’. Swenja is also part of the DFID-funded Uncertainty reduction in models for understanding development (UMFULA) project, exploring insurance decision making in a developing country context.

Research Interest

  Insurance of climate risks: governance, public-private partnerships and political processes The role of insurance in climate resilient development Flood insurance in developed countries, emerging markets and the developing world; UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage policy area The benefits of disaster risk management Private sector adaptation – SMEs and MNCs