Professor Tim Forsyth is a specialist on the politics of environment and development, with a focus on understanding contested science and risk within environmental governance. His work analyses two themes: the politics and policy processes of contested environmental debates in rapidly developing countries; and the evolution of new multi-actor, multi-level forms of governance such as cross-sector partnerships or deliberative forums. He has written on climate change governance; forest policies in Asia; and social movements and local governance.

Professor Forsyth has degrees from the Universities of Oxford and London, and has been a fellow at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs); the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex; Harvard University, Stanford University, and the European University Institute in Florence. He has more than five years' work and research experience in Asia and is fluent in Thai. He has been a Specialist Adviser to the UK House of Commons International Development Committee on two occasions, relating to climate change and aid, and in preparations for the COP26 meeting in 2021. He is a lead author in the assessment on transformative change organized by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). His work has also been cited in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

Professor Forsyth is also the general editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of International Development, and is on the editorial boards of Global Environmental Politics, Critical Policy Studies, Conservation and Society, Progress in Development Studies, Social Movement Studies, and Frontiers in Human Dynamics: Environment, Politics and Society.