Head of Climate Adaption Policy, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

Policy Fellow Alumna, Centre for Science and Policy

Frances is now the Head of Climate Adaptation Policy at Defra. In this role she leads the policy team responsible for delivering statutory duties on climate adaptation, as set out in the Climate Change Act. This includes delivery and implementation of the National Adaptation Programme, working with action owners and policy leads in Defra, its agencies, across government and the private sector to ensure actions and objectives are achieved. As part of this, she oversees the department's work on Adaptation Reporting, through which Defra engages with major infrastructure providers and public bodies on their preparedness for climate change. More broadly, this position involves promoting climate adaptation within government, seeking to ensure that consideration of climate risks and adaptation are embedded across policy making, and aligned with the 25 Year Environment Plan.

She was previously the Policy and Programme manager for DFID Rwanda where she was responsible for the country office’s humanitarian programmes in Rwanda and Burundi. She also managed DFID’s policy work on and external communications for Rwanda and Burundi, working closely with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Prior to that, Frances worked at Defra, developing policy to create a Circular Economy– seeking to boost sustainability through the reuse of resources through recycling and transformation. She has held posts at the Department for Transport and DFID, as well as traineeships at the European Commission and the European Central Bank. She is especially interested in environmental issues affecting and affected by economic development. Frances completed a MSc in Environmental Change and Management at the University of Oxford in 2013-14, where she specialised in ecosystem services. She previously completed degrees in Philosophy and Public Policy at UCL and the LSE.