Axel Marx

Axel Marx is Deputy Director Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, KU Leuven. The Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies is an interdisciplinary research centre of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the KU Leuven (University of Leuven) The Centre was founded in 2007 and I have been involved as a research manager and senior researcher since its foundation. It was set up to promote, support and carry out high-quality international, innovative and interdisciplinary research on global governance. In addition to its fundamental research activities the Centre carries out independent applied research and offers innovative policy advice and solutions to policy-makers on multilateral governance and global public policy issues. Since 2010, the Centre has been recognized as a KU Leuven Centre of Excellence and since 2016 as a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence.

He has managed over 50 funded research projects including multi-team and international FP7 and Horizon 2020 projects and acted as a consultant to several national and international organizations including  the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Committee of the Regions, International Labour Organization, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards, UNCTAD, OECD, IDEA, several national and regional governments and several private actors. His academic publications (200+) have appeared in five dozen leading international peer reviewed journals and 6 languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Chinese). He recently developed a Massive Open Online Course on the Sustainable Development Goals and Sustainable Trade on the EdX-platform. As a guest lecturer he taught inter alia at European University Institute, China University of Political Science and Law and several European Universities. He is currently the co-chair of the Academic Advisory Council of the United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards, a member of the Evidensia Research Council and a member of the steering committee of the ILO Labour Provisions in Trade Agreements Hub. His research interests include voluntary sustainability standards, sustainable development, human/labour rights, global governance, corporate social responsibility, governance through trade, EU trade policy and comparative case methods.