Professur für Politische Wissenschaft  Dr. Simon Bulian (geb. Schaub)

Simon Bulian (né Schaub) is a post‐doc at the Institute of Political Science at Heidelberg University and studies climate and environmental politics. He is currently part of the ERC‐funded collaborative project DeepDCarb on climate politics and of the Nature Restoration project funded by the Heidelberg Center for the Environment. His work focuses in particular on the following questions: How do political actors respond to climate change? To what extent do political and institutional factors influence the adoption of climate protection measures? What political factors influence the design of sustainable agricultural and food systems? What influences citizens' environmental behavior and their support for environmental and climate policy?

Simon Bulian is involved in various interdisciplinary research. He integrates concepts from various disciplines such as biology, computational linguistics, psychology, and environmental economics. This has resulted in various works on water protection and drinking water, the integration of environmental, forestry, and agricultural policy, green biotechnology, and energy and climate policy. A prime example is his dissertation, in which he examined the influence of public debates on the regulation of water pollution by micropollutants and pollutants from agriculture as part of the interdisciplinary Effect-Net project.

• Arvanitopoulos, Theodoros, Bulian, Simon, Wilson, Charlie, Jordan, Andrew J., Tosun, Jale, and Nicholas Vasilakos (2026). ‘Climate policy portfolios that accelerate emission reductions’, Nature Communications, forthcoming.
• Tosun, Jale, Bulian, Simon, Gaffney, Alfie, Enguer, Joan, and Emiliano Levario Saad (2026). Leading from Below: Subnational Climate Leadership Dynamics Among Under2 Coalition Members. Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
• Schaub, Simon, Tosun, Jale, and Maria Becker (2025). Moralization in Policy Narratives: Insights From the Politics of Climate Change and Public Health. Policy Studies Journal (online first), doi: 

  https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.70050

• Tosun, Jale, Debus, Marc, Schaub, Simon, Klein, Sina, Scherer, Ulrike, Goeschl, Timo and Harald Horn, (2025). Tap water consumption choices in out-of-home settings: insights from a survey of German adults. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 41(3), 647-666, doi: 10.1080/07900627.2024.2423742
• Fleckenstein, Simon, Schaub, Simon, and Sotirov, Metodi (2025). Forests in the Spotlight: Discourse Coalitions and Storylines Shaping the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. Politics and Governance (online first), doi: 

  https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.10184

• Ma, Sai, Schaub, Simon, and Joan Enguer (2025). Regulatory and policy stability for renewable energy investment: An interdisciplinary analysis of the investment disputes against Spain. Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law, 34(2), 471-484, doi: 

  https://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12619

• Tosun, Jale, Schaub, Simon, Marek, Charlene, Kellermann, Laura, and Marcus A. Koch (2024). Attributing responsibility to farmers for environmental protection and climate action: insights from the European Union. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 1-22, doi: 10.1007/s13412-024-00981-7.
• Tosun, Jale and Simon Schaub (2024). Autocratization and environmental performance. In Aurel Croissant and Luca Tomini (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Autocratization (pp. 413-427). Routledge, Oxford.
• Tosun, Jale and Simon Schaub (2023). Environmental Policy Implementation. In Christoph Knill and Helge Jörgens (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Environmental Policy (pp. 136-150). Routledge, Oxford.
• Schaub, Simon (2021). Public contestation over agricultural pollution: a discourse network analysis on narrative strategies in the policy process. Policy Sciences, 54, 783–821, doi: 10.1007/s11077-021-09439-x .

• 2022: Doctoral Award of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences Heidelberg for the faculty's best political science PhD of the past four years, Heidelberg University, Germany.
• 2021: Viktor and Sigrid Dulger Foundation Environmental Price – Dissertation award for excellent research on the environment (10,000€).

• Schaub, Simon (2024). The US and climate change - on track to fulfill its international obligation? HCA Graduate Blog, doi: 10.58079/11qmj
• In Depth with Authors. Interview on 3. December 2024 on the main findings of a special issue on Climate Action through Policy Expansion and/or Dismantling: Country-Comparative Insights in the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis.
• Deep Decarbonisation – Die politische Herausforderung des Klimawandels. Public lecture on 6. December 2023 at the Ruperto Carola Lecture Series ÜberMorgen – Junge Forscher:innen der Universität Heidelberg.