Bentley Allan is associate professor of political science and an affiliate of the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He conducts research and policy engagement on the political economy of decarbonization, clean energy supply chains, industrial policy, the history and theory of international order, and the role of science in politics.
Professor Allan is also the founder and co-director of the The Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab. The lab combines the technical analysis of clean energy supply chains with the study of net-zero industrial policies to catalyze strategic collaborations between government and industry. The lab is a source of high quality, rigorous data and analysis that fits the actual needs of policy makers and decision makers, within the short timelines necessary to actually inform action. The lab aims to build the long-term infrastructure for good industrial policy in the US and abroad. The work of the lab encompasses distilling international best practices for industrial policy, the politics and technology of clean energy supply chains, and understanding emerging global institutions to support industrial policy.
He is working on a second book entitled Climate Formations: Nature, Knowledge, and Geopolitics in the History of Climate Politics. His first book, Scientific Cosmology and International Orders (Cambridge University Press, 2018), won the American Political Science Association’s Don K. Price Award for the best book in Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics. He has published articles in International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Political Economy, and European Journal of International Relations.
Through collaborations with the Transition Accelerator and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Professor Allan seeks to build coalitions for net zero and advance deep decarbonization. His public-facing writing appears regularly in national newspapers and online magazines. In this capacity, Allan has advised governments and businesses on net-zero industrial policy and supply chain strategy. From 2020 to 2021, Allan was associate director at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions where he funded and supported climate solutions research. Since 2021, Allan has lead strategic roadmapping exercises for the battery metals, sustainable aviation fuels, and mass timber industries. He has also conducted action-oriented research on renewables, critical minerals, hydrogen, heat pumps, steel, and more.
