{"id":2116,"date":"2019-11-18T13:26:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T13:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/sussexenergygroup\/?p=2116"},"modified":"2019-11-18T13:29:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T13:29:11","slug":"productivity-collaborations-pints-and-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/sussexenergygroup\/2019\/11\/18\/productivity-collaborations-pints-and-jazz\/","title":{"rendered":"Productivity, collaborations, pints and jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Visiting Senior Research Fellow Siddharth Sareen shares his experience of the intellectual, social, and even musical life of SPRU.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a happy, productive and busy old time with the Sussex Energy Group (SEG) during my semester as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU). My five month stint began in August 2019, with enjoyable chats with colleagues who were around and relatively free before the semester got into full swing. Social outings for a film (The Current Wars \u2013 an apt choice!) at The Depot and jazz at The Walrus made evenings convivial. And the odd guided hike through the beautifully undulating South Downs to Lewes for pints at The Snowdrop and The Swan gave ample scope for conversation and merriment. The month closed with chairing sessions and giving talks at the Royal Geographical Society \u2013 Institute of British Geographers conference<\/a> in London, which featured a strong focus on energy geographies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With September, leisurely walks\nthrough mulberry patches with scampering rabbits and sit-downs at the IDS or\nFalmer Bar became an occasional indulgence as work gathered pace. To make the\nmost of my time at SPRU and in the UK, I had committed to several engagements\nspaced out during the semester. These included Adrian Smith\u2019s post-automation\nworkshop, which created ample scope for learning and inspiration as I drafted a\nmanuscript on participatory environmental monitoring technologies, and a\nworkshop on achieving net zero at University of Oxford, where I presented work\nthat is taking shape as a SPRU working paper. I enjoyed plugging into various\nofferings on campus, such as a day on the pedagogic revolution<\/a> spent reflecting on my\nteaching practice. Weekends afforded scope to pop over to the Florence Road\nMarket and catch up with friends and relatives in various parts of the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

October was a blur, with a major\ngrant application deadline, organising a biannual Beyond Oil<\/a> conference and a Bergen Energy Lab<\/a> seminar back at my home Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation<\/a> at the University of\nBergen, and giving seminars about my open access book (Enabling sustainable energy transitions: Practices of\nlegitimation and accountable governance<\/a>) at The University of Edinburgh and\nUniversity College London right when it was published. This also features work\nby Benjamin Sovacool<\/a>, my SEG host, who visited\nme in Bergen in May 2019 to contribute to a workshop on the theme. Another SEG\ncolleague, Marie Claire Brisbois<\/a>, also attended the workshop, and\nI\u2019ve spent part of my time at SPRU editing a Global Transitions special issue<\/a> that emerged from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that same month, I gave a\nplenary talk about my research on the governance of Portuguese solar energy\nuptake<\/a> at an economics festival in Stavanger \u2013 the same city where I conducted\nfieldwork on the global climate strike as part of an organic collaboration with\ncolleagues at SEG and elsewhere. This is the best sort of collaborative outcome\nfrom a research visit and one I had hoped for \u2013 I\u2019m enjoying the co-writing\nexercise as the manuscript takes shape and learning from Mari Martiskainen<\/a>\u2019s able leadership. I also\nhopped trains across the Channel and back for a workshop in Amsterdam on the\nuse of qualitative data in energy poverty research, making the most of being\nable to avoid aviation carbon emissions to participate in meaningful events in\nplaces that are difficult to reach by surface transport from my usual base in\nthe fjords of western Norway. This workshop was part of the ENGAGER network on European energy poverty<\/a>, where I co-chair a\nworking group on indicators with another UK-based colleague, Harriet Thomson,\nand happily, Mari has also contributed to our upcoming working group report\nalong the lines of her new FAIR<\/a> project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entering the latter stages of my time\nat the University of Sussex, Benjamin, Andrew Hook and I got into the thick of\nthings with a planned collaboration with Frank Geels for the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions<\/a>\n(CREDS).\nWe travelled up to Manchester to spend an afternoon with Frank, puzzling over\nsmart meter rollouts in Europe. I\u2019m enjoying putting heads together for this\nwork, which will continue into early 2020 when I am back in Bergen, and serve\nto naturally extend the productive engagement sparked during this semester.\nWhether it\u2019s reflective chats with Andy Stirling and Matthew Lockwood, office \u201cbanter\u201d\nwith visiting fellows Beate Friedrich and Helene Ahlborg, or meeting up at\nLondon events with Abigail Martin, SEG serves as a confluence of interests that\nis both pleasant and generative. It is a delight to unpack these fertile\noverlaps at some length during my semester with the group, and I look forward\nto sharing insights with my colleagues in Bergen. Events like the SEG Away Day\nhave, in many ways, been reminiscent of annual retreats in my home research\ngroup, and I am grateful for the privilege of being able to learn from both\nsets of experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I leave SEG I will share some of my work at a Climate and Energy seminar<\/a>, which is fantastic. It has been a packed and fun semester so far, and I carry fond memories of the university campus, the famous Laines and my regular haunts off Lewes Road, and of the friendly people who make academic life as socially rewarding as it is intellectually enriching!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Siddharth Sareen<\/a>\n(Siddharth.Sareen@uib.no\/S.Sareen@sussex.ac.uk)<\/p>\nFollow Sussex Energy Group \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visiting Senior Research Fellow Siddharth Sareen shares his experience of the intellectual, social, and even musical life of SPRU. It\u2019s been a happy, productive and busy old time with the Sussex Energy Group (SEG) during my semester as a Visiting…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[96027],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n