Can social sciences and humanities re-energise efficiency? Films and presentations available from eceee policy seminar

(eceee news, 18 Jan 2019) In the eceee seminar Re-energising efficiency: looking beyond technology and economics, policy makers and researchers discussed whether approaches from social sciences and humanities could contribute with complementary approaches that could help us unlock larger savings and greenhouse gas reductions.

The eceee’s policy seminar was arranged 27 November 2018 in cooperation with the SHAPE ENERGY platform.

The rate of energy efficiency improvements globally and in Europe is slowing down at a time when energy efficiency needs to deliver savings for the climate to meet the 1.5°C goal. We often seem to get stuck along classical battle lines whether something is technically feasible or not and whether it pays to do it.

Together with the SHAPE ENERGY project, eceee wanted to explore whether alternative and complementary approaches could help us unlock larger savings and greenhouse gas reductions. Social sciences and humanities have played less of a role to date in shaping European energy policy than Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

SHAPE ENERGY aims to develop Europe’s expertise in using and applying energy-SSH. The innovative SHAPE ENRGY Platform (where eceee is a partner) brings together those who ‘demand’ energy research – including businesses, policymakers, and NGOs, who can use it to develop practical initiatives – with those who ‘supply’ that research.

Presentations (films and pdf:s) by the following speakers can be downloaded from the eceee web site           

Kevin Lane, International Energy Agency
Serena Pontoglio, European Commission, DG Energy
Rodolphe Nicolle, Buildings 2030
Ruth Mourik, DuneWorks
Gerd Schönwälder, European Commission, DG Research & Innovation
Tina Fawcett, ECI, Oxford University

The panel debate, also available on the eceee web site, was structured along questions as:

  • What sorts of information do policy makers want from social science and humanities research projects? How do they like this information to be presented?
  • Do policy makers need to learn how to make better use of the results from social science and humanities research projects?
  • Can the social sciences and humanities give key insights into how to do this better?

ShapeEnergy