Professor John Porter is an internationally known Agro-ecological scientist with expertise in ecosystem services in agro-ecosystems, including agro-ecology, simulation modeling, and food system ecology including that of cities. His main contribution has been multi-disciplinary and collaborative experimental and modeling work in the response of arable crops, energy crops, and complex agro-ecosystems to their environment with an emphasis on climate change, ecosystem services, and food systems. Prof. Porter has published ca. 170 papers in peer-reviewed journals with ca. 19000 citations. He has personally received three international prizes for his research and teaching and three others jointly with his research group.

From 2011 to 2014 he led the writing of the critically important chapter for the IPCC 5th Assessment in Working Group 2 on food production systems and food security, including fisheries and livestock. This chapter was one of the most cited from the IPCC 5th Assessment and formed an important scientific bedrock of the COP21 agreement in Paris in 2015. He has recently become a member of the interdisciplinary international working group on post-growth economics and a founder member of the Advanced Research Institute at the University of Montpellier and a science consultant on the One Planet Fellowship Programme. His mantras are – ‘Enough from less’ and ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing’.