Dr. Tamara Krawchenko

About

Dr. Tamara Krawchenko is an internationally recognized scholar, policy expert, and institution-builder whose work spans the fields of comparative public policy, regional development, and sustainability transitions. Her expertise is grounded in a deep understanding of how governance and public institutions shape the lived realities of communities and regions.  She serves as a Strategic Research Area lead with the CFREF-funded Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative, as Chair of the and as a core team member of the Coastal Climate Solutions Leaders program. Over 2025-2026, she joins the Institute for Research on Public Policy  as a Visiting Scholar,  contributing to their work on regional development and community transformations.

Dr. Krawchenko’s scholarship is placed-based—focusing on understanding local and regional assets, challenges and opportunities and supporting and engaging diverse communities to meet their development goals. She has led international programs of research in over a dozen countries on regional development policies, sustainability transitions, Indigenous economic development, industrial policy and the governance of land use. Dr. Krawchenko regularly advises governments, including through work with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Bank. She has worked for both the federal and provincial governments in Canada and for research institutes and universities in Canada, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan as a professor and researcher. She is engaged as a Special Advisor to the Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada, as an expert with the Canadian Climate Institute’s Clean Growth Panel, is an Affiliate with the Transition Accelerator’s Center for New-Zero Industrial Policy and a Board Member of EcoTrust Canada.

Dr. Krawchenko holds a PhD in Public Policy and Political Economy from Carleton University, a master's degree in Public Administration from Dalhousie University and a bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science from Dalhousie University.

Research interests

• Political economy and economic geography
• Comparative public policy
• Land use planning and strategic spatial planning
• Community and economic development
• Territorial development policies (regional, rural, urban)
• Industrial policy
• Transportation and infrastructure policy
• Research methods and philosophy of social sciences