Dr. Kira Vinke is the Director of the Centre for Climate and Foreign Policy at DGAP. She is also Co-Chair of the Federal Government's Advisory Council on Civilian Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding. From 2014-2022, she worked at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Before joining DGAP, she headed the East Africa Peru India Climate Capacities (EPICC) project.
Until 2018, Kira Vinke was scientific advisor to the PIK Director. In this role, she worked as a consultant for the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) from 2014-2016. She provided her expertise as a consultant for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Asian Development Bank. She has extensive field research experience in South Asia, the Pacific and the Sahel.
Dr. Vinke completed her PhD (summa cum laude) at the Humboldt University of Berlin on the topic of climate change and migration. Her studies were funded by the German National Academic Foundation. She received the “Potsdam Young Scientist Award” from the City of Potsdam for her dissertation.Dr. Vinke has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS) since 2022. She is also on the Board of Trustees of the German Climate Foundation and the Board of Trustees of World Vision Deutschland e.V. She is also a member of the association of the German section of “Action against Hunger” and the Development Service and Humanitarian Aid Committee of “Brot für die Welt”.
