Chris Foulds’s research while affiliated with Anglia Ruskin University and other places

The policy recommendations presented in this book demonstrate the value and opportunities of interdisciplinarity for policymaking. The recommendations produced cover a diverse range of topics and policy areas and are informed by various interdisciplinary collaborative activities. The outputs of the interdisciplinary collaborations evidence: (1) how questions related to energy supply, demand and systems benefit from both Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) perspectives), (2) that the achievement of EU policies can require the participation of multiple actors across multiple scales, (3) how policymaking can be supported not only through research on policy topics, but also by research on the processes of policymaking and their governance environments, and (4) the complex negotiation processes that exist at research-policy interfaces. Yet, there is the need to consider interdisciplinarity, and what this means in practice, critically. In doing so, it demonstrates the value of focusing more on the interdisciplinary processes and experiences in play. Indeed, across the book chapters, there were commonalities in how the interdisciplinary collaborations occurred in practice. This book not only demonstrates the value and opportunities for interdisciplinary research, but also, we hope, will encourage others to engage in interdisciplinary activities.

The European Union (EU) has set out ambitious targets to address European sustainability and environmental challenges. As part of this, policies and initiatives focusing on both energy supply and energy demand have been established. Yet, the complexity of enacting the required actions demonstrates the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to inform approaches. The integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and the technical sciences (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)) provides opportunities to identify policy approaches which challenge the status quo, supporting low-carbon energy transitions. This book includes interdisciplinary recommendations for relevant EU energy strategies—a total of 10 recommendations, split into four parts, are presented. This chapter includes a breakdown of the book’s chapters and its overall narrative. The chapter closes with tips on how to read the book as a whole, as well as the individual chapters it is composed of.

Reaching across policy and research boundaries is essential if low-carbon energy transformations are to be achieved. A Boundary Spanner is an individual/organisation that sits between traditional users and producers of knowledge; thus, Boundary Spanners can and do enable knowledge exchange between research and policy communities. However, despite much discussion of Boundary Spanners in certain literatures, the concept has been sparsely applied to issues of energy policy and governance. In fact, it has been altogether excluded from discussions of how Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) communities and energy policy actors can better work together towards common goals. This Perspective piece provides 12 recommendations for Boundary Spanners operating in these spaces, which we cluster into four themes: (i) Pay active attention to policy contexts of action; (ii) Use power to build bridges to different (and underrepresented) constituencies; (iii) Ensure institutions promote boundary spanning skill development; and (iv) Sensitively support the agendas of external colleagues. We hope this Perspective contributes to more attention being given to these relatively few Boundary Spanners, who work in the margins between policy and research, and also provides useful guidance on how they may do so.

Despite the efforts of the EU, disparities remain in terms of the participation of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) researchers from both Southern and Central & Eastern Europe in research collaborations, as compared to Northern and Western European scholars. To better understand these disparities, the EU Horizon Europe SSH CENTRE project ran a Call for Evidence over December 2022 to March 2023. Specifically, respondents were asked about the challenges they faced in conducting SSH research on climate, energy and/or mobility, as well as the ways in which these challenges could be addressed. The Call’s online survey was focused on maximising diversity, and it gathered views and experiences of 137 Southern and Central & Eastern European SSH researchers. The sample was balanced across genders (71 men, 66 women) and the three main themes (82 energy, 88 climate, 53 mobility), and included at least one respondent from each of the 27 target countries. The highest numbers of respondents were from Hungary (19) and Spain (21). To ensure that interpretation and analysis of the data was grounded in regional contexts, we ran two parallel analysis workshops hosted in a hybrid format (combining online and in-person participants): one in Pécs for Central & Eastern European SSH researchers (34 participants); and one in Bilbao for Southern European SSH researchers (26 participants). These workshops focused on discussing the relationship between SSH-STEM disciplines, analysing the institutional contexts, and discussing the implications for domestic and EU research funding relations. During the workshops, data collected through the survey was collectively analysed and the most important reflections were gathered into a common structure of ‘Challenges’ and ‘Ways forward’. Key messages from the workshop are being distilled in a Position Statement that focuses on the common elements while also emphasising possible differences between Southern and Central & Eastern Europe.

The importance of gender is increasingly recognised in energy research, with growing awareness of the intersections of energy access and gender equity. Yet, a major knowledge gap exists regarding the role of professional intermediaries and institutions in reproducing and/or challenging gendered forms of energy exclusion, especially in the Global South. This paper addresses this gap by considering the gendered energy imaginaries of energy professionals in Global South contexts. Integrating literature on socio-technical imaginaries – which to date has been developed in predominantly Global North contexts – with feminist accounts of gender, energy and development, this paper investigates gendered imaginaries of energy access among energy professionals across four Global South contexts (India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Ghana). The case-study approach involved thematic analysis of interviews with 86 energy professionals, and revealed a spectrum of gendered energy imaginaries with two archetypes at the extremes of the spectrum: (1) The Gender-Neutral Grid Imaginary (GNGI); and, (2) The Gender-Aware Decentralised Development Imaginary (GADDI). These two imaginaries are unpacked in terms of their underlying actors, practices, and outcomes. Special attention is paid to how different constructions of the ‘end-user’ within professional imaginaries work to perpetuate or alleviate forms of gendered exclusion. These visions propagate energy access outcomes by shaping women’s access to and use of technologies, decision-making, and employment in the energy sector. Findings reveal that whilst the GADDI imaginary shows better considerations for gendered energy access, existing gendered imaginaries among professionals fall short across the spectrum in generating equitable outcomes. The paper concludes by providing specific recommendations for energy practice and policy dominating the energy transition landscape in the Global South and reiterates the need to move beyond ‘gender-mainstreaming’ towards intersectional conceptions of social equity and energy justice. This is vital to address the gaps in existing professional and institutional imaginaries that shape energy access outcomes.

“Smart consumption”. ‘What is that? Energy transitions are at the top of global agendas. The EU is positioning itself as playing a pivotal role in addressing climate risks and sustainability imperatives. Smart consumption as a key element of these efforts, however, mostly explored from a predominantly technical perspective thus often failing to identify or address fundamental interlinkages with social systems and consequences. This paper contributes to interdisciplinary energy research by analysing a forward looking ‘Horizon Scan’ research agenda for smart consumption, driven by the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). A systematic Delphi Method exercise among over 70 SSH scholars from various institutional settings across Europe, reveals what SSH scholars see as future directions for smart consumption research. 100 SSH Research Questions are identified, grouped in 7 themes, representing key ‘shifts’ this smart research agenda when compared to previous agendas: (1) From technological inevitability to political choice, highlighting the need for a wider political critique, with the potential to open up discussions of the instrumentalisation of smart research; (2) From narrow representation to diverse inclusion, moving beyond the shortcomings of current discourses for engaging marginalised communities; and (3) From individual consumers to interconnected citizens, reframing smart consumption to offer a broader model of social change and governance. Social Sciences and Humanities scholarship is essential to address these shifts in meaningful, going beyond the commonly applied tokenistic ways. This agenda and the shifts it embodies represent key tools to enable better interdisciplinary working between SSH and teams from the technical and natural sciences.

This Position Statement aims to foreground the voices of Social Sciences & Humanities (SSH) researchers from Southern Europe (SE) and Central & Eastern Europe (CEE), working on sustainability-related challenges. Despite efforts, disparities remain in terms of the participation of SSH researchers in many countries from SE and CEE in research collaborations, as compared to Northern and Western scholars. This is accompanied by burdens such as precarious conditions and temporary contracts in SE, and very low salaries in CEE. Given SSH is already marginalised in favour of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) disciplines when it comes to funding, this means SSH research and researchers from SE and CEE are disadvantaged several times over. This Position Statement intends to help overcome fragmentation across geographies (North/ South/ East/ West Europe), disciplines (e.g. social vs. technical sciences) and sustainability themes (e.g.climate, energy and mobility). It is part of the work of the Horizon Europe initiative SSH CENTRE, which aims to generate best practices for how SSH can be better integrated into EU research and innovation policy