{"id":2150,"date":"2020-03-16T15:12:32","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T15:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/sussexenergygroup\/?p=2150"},"modified":"2024-02-13T15:45:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T15:45:37","slug":"using-academia-to-influence-policy-reflections-on-one-year-at-the-energy-saving-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/sussexenergygroup\/2020\/03\/16\/using-academia-to-influence-policy-reflections-on-one-year-at-the-energy-saving-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Using academia to influence policy: reflections on one year at the Energy Saving Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our FAIR Research Fellow Max Lacey-Barnacle shares his experiences working in policy, and how the experience interlinks with academia.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After moving from academia into policy work after completing my PhD<\/a>, my time at the Energy Saving Trust<\/a> (EST) as a Policy Officer has been nothing short of fascinating. Working on EST\u2019s three core policy areas of energy efficiency, community energy and low-carbon transport has greatly expanded my knowledge of the research-policy interface as a result of this experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have had numerous exciting opportunities\nto travel across the UK and Europe to meet with civil servants, policymakers\nand researchers working to address core energy and climate policy challenges.\nIn addition, I\u2019ve been able to work closely on fuel\npoverty<\/a> and low-carbon transport policy with Welsh government, whilst also\ndevoting time towards a Horizon 2020 project focused on energy efficiency (\u2018ENSMOV<\/a>\u2019) and the role of European energy agencies\nin the EU\u2019s low-carbon transition through the European\nEnergy Network<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The passion, commitment and intelligence of the individuals and organisations I\u2019ve been involved with has been immensely inspiring in the face of the worsening global climate crisis. Moreover, I have learned (and still have much to learn) much from the brilliant staff at the EST and their dedication to tackling climate change. After my year at EST, I\u2019ve transitioned back to academia in a Research Fellow role at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), working primarily on the innovative FAIR project<\/a>, led by Dr Mari Martiskainen<\/a> at SPRU. FAIR is investigating the links between fuel and transport poverty in the UK\u2019s energy transition and will seek to understand how low-carbon energy transition processes may exacerbate and\/or alleviate these forms of inequality. I\u2019m excited to be working on such a pertinent project with strong research and policy relevance to low-carbon transitions, particularly after working in policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The FAIR Team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Acclimatising\nto policy <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming from the academic world of\nresearching, writing and publishing original work, the change of pace was one\nof the first challenges I had to acclimatise to when confronted with navigating\nthe policy world. Policy certainly moves at a much faster pace than academia.\nIndeed, keeping up with the dynamic changes of government policy at multiple\nlevels of governance (e.g. local, regional, devolved and national) requires a keen\neye for how multi-level policy shifts influence the shape and trajectory of the\nlow-carbon economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing the temporal disparity between the\ntwo worlds of academia and policy led me to ask; how can the policy world be influenced by the academic world, when critical\nchanges occur and core outputs emerge at such different paces and timescales?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting original research published in\nacademic journals can take anywhere from three months to two years, whilst\npolicy outputs such as blogs or briefings \u2013 or even consultation responses to\ninfluence policy \u2013sometimes take just a matter of weeks<\/em>. However, in spite of this disparity, it\u2019s clear that both\nworlds \u2018speak\u2019 to each other and this is evidenced through increasing\nengagement concerning the links between social inequality and climate change\npolicy responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Areas\nof convergence between academia and policy <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issues such as \u2018energy\npoverty\u2019<\/a> and concepts such as \u2018energy\njustice\u2019<\/a> and a \u2018Just\nTransition\u2019<\/a> have begun to take centre stage in the policy world, whilst academics have arguably been\nwriting about these concepts for many years. This year alone we have seen the European\nGreen Deal<\/a> integrate energy poverty concerns and a \u2018Just Transition\u2019\nmechanism into its future plans, whilst the steady emergence\nof Just Transition commissions across the world<\/a> demonstrates the importance\nof continued academic and policy engagement in how low-carbon transitions are\ngoverned and managed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being familiar with these concepts, I sought to integrate these ideas into many aspects of my policy work at the EST. What stood out the most during my time there, was the willingness of the devolved governments to embrace the critical<\/em> work and ideas of academics, potentially more so than the UK government. For example, both the Welsh and Scottish governments seem to show more progressive attitudes towards tackling climate change and social inequality together e.g. via innovative Welsh legislation (Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015<\/a>) and Scottish legislation (Fuel Poverty (Scotland) Act 2019).<\/a> Additionally, Scotland has already established a Just Transition commission<\/a> and Wales has announced intentions to set up a \u2018Climate Justice Advisory Group\u2019<\/a> that would perform broadly similar functions \u2013 monitoring the economic and social impacts of decommissioning fossil fuel power plants and what this means for fossil fuel industry workers. In addition, Just Transition commissions can be tasked with analysis of the social impacts of new low-carbon energy infrastructures and services. Currently, there are no equivalents in England, Northern Ireland and at the UK level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wales are monitoring economic and social impacts of decomissioning fossil fuel powerplants<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\ncontribution of social science to energy and climate policy <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connecting these research-policy\ninteractions forced me to think broadly about what social science research\nintends to achieve when analysing policy: do social scientists want to\ninfluence new policies or critically deconstruct the performance of existing\nones? Is it possible to successfully do both? In many ways, the ultimate aim is\nto do both, particularly for policy oriented researchers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, one of the core goals of academic\nresearch is to shed new light on areas that have been neglected or ill\nconsidered. While academics may not see the immediate impact of their research\non unexplored policy areas, patience may be a virtue if long-terms trends give\nrise to a renewed focus on their chosen area of research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, social scientists rightly feel\ncompelled to highlight the potential exacerbation of social inequality by\nvarious policy responses to climate change, and to ask challenging questions in\nnew contexts. For example, academic work on fuel poverty and \u2018transport\npoverty\u2019 shows a strong involvement of academics and researchers on the fuel\npoverty side and less so on the transport side. This is because the idea of\ntransport poverty is a particularly novel idea in UK policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is therefore room to expand the\nconcept of transport poverty and issues of social equity in low-carbon\ntransport innovations. However, it will be some time before such as concept\nbecomes the \u2018norm\u2019 within mainstream policy discourse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst my year working in policy has shown\nme that the diffusion of such concepts into policy takes time, it is comforting\nto know these ideas are not falling on deaf ears \u2013 particularly in Wales and\nScotland. As policy responses simultaneously addressing issues of social\ninequality and climate change intensify, policymakers will increasingly be\nforced to listen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\narticle is based on an earlier 2020 blog post published by the <\/em>RIPPLES research group<\/em><\/a>,\nthe original article can be found <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\nFollow Sussex Energy Group \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our FAIR Research Fellow Max Lacey-Barnacle shares his experiences working in policy, and how the experience interlinks with academia. After moving from academia into policy work after completing my PhD, my time at the Energy Saving Trust (EST) as a…<\/span><\/p>\n

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