Daniel Franks

Daniel’s work is interdisciplinary and highly engaged. He has field experience at more than 75 mining and energy sites internationally and 37 countries. His research was publicly cited by the Chief Operating Officer of the International Council on Mining and Metals as “academic research that has changed the mineral industry.” He played an important role in The Australian Government’s flagship $31m International Mining for Development Centre hosted by UQ and The University of Western Australia, as well as The Queensland Government’s ‘Sustainable Resource Communities Policy.’

Daniel is an instructor of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) ‘Natural Resources for Sustainable Development’, hosted by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, The World Bank and the Natural Resources Governance Institute, where he teaches alongside Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Sir Paul Collier. He is a Docent at the Institute for Natural Resources, Environment & Society, University of Eastern Finland and an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Minerals Policy & Economics (Resources Policy) and Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal. He is the immediate past co-Chair of Social Impact Assessment at the International Association of Impact Assessment, a role he held between 2011 and 2017.

In 2018, Daniel Chaired the International Conference on Artisanal and Small-scale Mining and Quarrying, which was attended by five-hundred and forty-seven (547) delegates from 72 countries and opened by the President of Zambia. As Chair he oversaw the historic Mosi-oa-Tunya Declarationon Artisanal and Small-scale Mining, Quarrying and Development.

Professor Franks is the author of more than 100 publications in 8 languages, including the book ‘Mountain Movers: Mining, sustainability and the agents of change’ (Earthscan, 2015) and his highly cited study with Rachel Davis on the costs of company-community conflict in the extractives sector, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesand by The Harvard Kennedy School. The forward to the Harvard Kennedy School Reportwas written by Professor John Ruggie, UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Business and Human Rights.

Daniel’s research has attracted global media attention by more than forty outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Associated Press, Vox Africa and Reuters. He authored a single author chapter within the prestigious Mining Engineering Handbook, a compendium published just once each generation and a chapter with Volker Boege, in High-value natural resources and post-conflict peacebuilding, published by Earthscan. The later volume was led by UN Environment’s Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and Natural Resource Management programme, and the foreword of the book was written by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, then President of Liberia and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. He was the lead editor of a special issue of Resources Policy on ‘Understanding and Managing Cumulative Impacts in Resource Regions,’ which contributed new theory on cumulative impacts in minerals and energy-rich resource regions.

Daniel has successfully managed large research and capacity building programs, with over $7.5M in research funding support as a named investigator and over $21M for training/capacity building.