Keywords

1 Current EU Energy Policy Ambitions

Over the last 10–20 years, the European Union (EU) has become increasingly interested in decarbonising its energy system. Whilst we are not going to comprehensively narrate the evolution of EU energy policy across this timeframe—such as unpacking the relationship between current policies and their predecessors, e.g. EU Energy Union (European Commission, 2015) and Clean energy for all Europeans (European Commission, Directorate-General for Energy, 2019)—we do feel it worthwhile to articulate the diversity of policies established by the EU to support low-carbon energy transitions. The EU is a global leader in energy policymaking, with this providing multiple opportunities and avenues through which researchers can engage with energy policy.

The flagship EU Green Deal is a set of policy programmes that address an array of European sustainability and environmental challenges—within this, updated commitments have been made to drive progress on both energy demand and supply matters. For example, the EU Green Deal triggered the development of the: European Climate Law (European Union, 2021), which established a framework for the EU achieving carbon neutrality by 2050; and, the Renovation Wave Strategy (European Commission, 2020), which, set out to reduce barriers to energy and resource-efficient renovation, and included, for example, ambitions to at least double the annual energy renovation rate of residential and non-residential buildings by 2030. EU Green Deal commitments also led to the ‘Fit for 55’ package of legislation, which primarily involved a range of updates to existing energy-related EU Directives, such as Energy Efficiency Directive (European Union 2023a); European Performance of Buildings Directive (European Union, 2024); and Renewable Energy Directive (European Union, 2023b).

This ambitious work has been built on further, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which heightened European concern around energy security. Indeed, this led to the introduction of REPowerEU (European Commission, 2022), which focused on increasing the resilience of the energy system within Europe, and included actions to diversify energy supply and accelerate the clean energy transition.

As shown here, policies are continually built upon with new nuances, in response to developments within the EU and shifts in the geopolitical landscape. The pace of policy development and the urgency in which those policies need to be delivered on-the-ground is also clear. We take the view in this book that the achievement of stated ambitions requires more than the adoption of new technologies; rather, there is a need to rethink how the energy system operates. As part of this, governance approaches should accommodate multiple stakeholders, address conflicting interests, and foster integration between countries. It is exactly in these ways that calls for interdisciplinarity come to the fore.

2 The Need for Interdisciplinary Collaboration to Meet Complex European Energy Challenges

When this book refers to ‘interdisciplinarity’, we are referring to the integration of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) perspectives. This is not to say that interdisciplinarity does not occur within SSH or within STEM fields (and is not of value), but the scope of this book firmly focuses on what can be achieved through SSH and STEM working together. SSH disciplinesFootnote 1 include Sociology, Psychology, Human Geography, Law, Philosophy, etc.; and STEM disciplines include Physics, Computer Science, Civil Engineering, Climate Science, Geology, etc.

Increasingly, European policymakers are calling for the research and innovation (R&I) they fund to better integrate STEM and SSH. Indeed, European Commission commitments to ‘mainstreaming SSH’ (i.e. embedding SSH within the proposal template) or ‘flagging SSH’ (i.e. labelling calls that are particularly relevant for SSH perspectives) have become embedded in the EU’s recent Framework Programmes. However, we argue that SSH is often not taken seriously by STEM researchers running EU-funded projects. More broadly, policymakers often have a preference for STEM-led knowledge, which is deemed to be more objective, quantitative, instrumental, and technologically-grounded (Royston & Foulds, 2021).

Therefore, despite attempts to have more interdisciplinary R&I, STEM perspectives continue to dominate the evidence base behind Europe’s low-carbon energy transition. Across EU Horizon2020, SSH partners received 16% of funding in energy R&I projects (European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, 2023). Indeed, the European Commission’s approach to innovation is fundamentally technological; for example, social innovation is backgrounded by the prioritisation of Technological Readiness Levels. All this means that much SSH-STEM collaboration can be weak, tokenistic, and/or overtly mainstream, to thus align with dominant R&I expectations. SSH has traditionally played a subordinate role to STEM (Kropp, 2021; Silvast & Foulds, 2022).

Without the meaningful integration of a range of SSH perspectives, energy-related R&I will continue to lack due attention to, for example, social practices, social values, institutional dynamics, materiality, and social justice (Foulds & Robison, 2018; Ingeborgrud et al., 2020). SSH perspectives can support the shift to alternative energy governance, (infra)structures, and transitions, by providing insights into social phenomena that organise how people interact with the energy system, and by incorporating questions of equity and fairness (Foulds & Robison, 2018). These insights are increasingly pertinent as low-carbon energy transitions provide opportunities to radically rethink energy systems and practices, for example by providing opportunities to increase the number of actors participating in the energy system, support energy democratisation, and expand distributed energy generation.

3 Stimulating Novel Interdisciplinary Collaborations Through This Book Project

Meeting the EU’s energy policy ambitions will require new policy approaches, which may significantly challenge the status quo. Thus, truly innovative interdisciplinary research, that integrates SSH and STEM disciplines, could play a fundamental role in Europe achieving its energy policy ambitions. Through this book project, we wanted to create a funded opportunity for such novel interdisciplinary collaborations. As such, the aim of this book project is to generate concrete interdisciplinary recommendations for relevant EU energy strategies, by bringing social and technical disciplines together on a more equal footing.

In doing so, this book looks beyond the issue of SSH fragmentation, to focus on interdisciplinary SSH-STEM collaborations. SSH fragmentation, i.e. the challenge of bringing together researchers from different SSH disciplines, has been addressed in-depth in previous initiatives we have led. These initiatives include the open access book, Advancing Energy Policy (Foulds & Robison, 2018), which brought together 50 researchers across a variety of SSH disciplines for the SHAPE ENERGY project. Further, we ran four Energy-SHIFTS Working Groups that sought to include a wider diversity of SSH expert voices in setting future R&I agendas for Renewables (Krupnik et al., 2022), Smart Consumption (Robison et al., 2023), Energy Efficiency (Foulds et al., 2022), and Mobility (Ryghaug et al., 2023).

By expanding upon this previous work on SSH fragmentation, to focus on developing SSH-STEM collaborative practices for EU-level energy policy, this book has a dual-purpose: firstly to showcase and disseminate important policy-relevant recommendations; but secondly to understand processes of cross-fertilisation between the SSH-STEM collaborators, and how these processes can support the development of policy recommendations.

4 Overview of the Four Parts of the Book and Constituent Chapters

The chapters of this edited collection have been grouped into four Parts: (1) Navigating community participation; (2) Navigating knowledges for the built environment; (3) Navigating the delivery of new technologies; and, (4) Navigating models for policy development. These Parts were not pre-defined, rather they emerged from the contributions from the different chapter teams. The emergent nature of these themes, the intention to start dialogue, and the complexity of interdisciplinary work are why the Parts focus on ‘navigation’—in that, the chapters within each of the Parts are not concrete, rather there is a flexibility and an evolving nature to policy recommendations depending upon the broader context they are situated in.

Part I on Navigating community participation includes chapters that focus on how community engagement with renewable energy projects and technologies can support positive social outcomes. The chapters posit that citizens need to be engaged in energy projects in order to achieve the EU’s low-carbon ambitions, and set out approaches that give communities the opportunity to share their views.

Mey et al. (Chapter 2) call for greater support to be provided for community-led renewable energy initiatives, including both governance mechanisms and digital planning tools. They argue that the leveraging of different instruments at different scales will help unlock the potential of community energy in the EU. Both Rohse et al. (Chapter 3) and Büscher et al. (Chapter 4) focus on the opportunities for geothermal energy in achieving the EU’s low-carbon ambitions. Rohse et al. (Chapter 3) recommend greater societal engagement in relation to geothermal developments, including at the project level, but also by regional and EU policymakers and geothermal operators. Whereas Büscher et al. (Chapter 4) focus more on the actions that can be undertaken to support the establishment of geothermal energy communities, referencing the need to involve local people in decision-making processes and facilitating proactive behaviour to support the implementation of energy communities both in the EU and in Africa.

Part II on Navigating knowledges for the built environment includes chapters focusing on the knowledge required to achieve the EU’s energy ambitions, highlighting different knowledges required to participate in different aspects of the energy transition. The chapters reflect on the importance of how knowledge is framed and shared. Knowledge is considered critical for supporting meaningful and informed participation in the energy system.

Calver et al. (Chapter 5) focus on energy literacy and the need to ensure that citizens have the knowledge to meaningfully participate in the energy system. The chapter sets out different elements and aspects that would support citizen comprehension. Whilst Macrorie et al. (Chapter 6) comment on the need for (re-)training programmes to ensure a diverse, skilled workforce able to support the achievement of EU and National retrofit targets. As part of this, they set out the opportunities of situating knowledge within defined contexts and the establishment of appropriate regulation and training.

Part III on Navigating the delivery of new technologies includes chapters on how policies are designed to support shifting energy systems. These chapters outline constituent policies that support both the delivery of new renewable energy technologies, and the digital infrastructures that are in themselves a new form of technology (whilst assisting the rollout of other technologies).

Derin-Güre et al. (Chapter 7) focus on agrivoltaic technologies and the need for an integrated policy framework to support the deployment of this technology. They argue that definitions, funding, and public engagement are critical elements. Clain et al. (Chapter 8) comment on the importance of public social acceptability for the rollout of renewable energy technologies. As part of this, they set out actions that can be undertaken to facilitate public acceptance. Mersni et al. (Chapter 9) call for greater consideration of how digital energy infrastructures can be safeguarded against cyberthreats. Approaches to support this include training programmes and the use of Artificial Intelligent (AI) technologies.

Part IV on Navigating models for policy development includes chapters which argue that models can support decision-making and inform policymaking practices, to help achieve EU energy policy ambitions. The chapters outline how models can integrate SSH insights and different perspectives, as well as the opportunities of doing so.

Buylova et al. (Chapter 10) demonstrate the opportunities for multicriteria models to support decision-making in relation to energy infrastructures. By providing the space for stakeholders to comment on the model, they give insight into how and when the model could be used to support decision-making. Süsser et al. (Chapter 10) reflect on the need to better incorporate SSH perspectives and diverse voices into the development of energy models, adopting a justice lens to frame the discussions. In doing so, they hope to inform the actions of policymakers and incorporate alternative understandings alongside the models.

5 Tips on How to Read This Book

The book has been structured to be accessible to a diverse audience. We hope that the book and its contents will support dialogue on energy policy, within and across SSH and STEM disciplines, and also between academics and policymakers.

The book’s chapters are intentionally short, with each chapter having a clearly defined purpose and message. Each of the 10 ‘core’ chapters of the book (Chapters 2–11) presents a policy recommendation for EU energy policy and sets out the evidence used to develop the recommendation. As the purpose of these 10 chapters is to introduce the policy recommendation, the chapters do not include a detailed literature review or methodology. Similarly, references are used sparingly to support or reinforce the arguments being made. Some of the chapters reference additional materials that support their chapter—these additional materials have been uploaded to the SSH CENTRE’s Zenodo site. The conclusion chapter (Chapter 12) provides reflections on how the recommendation chapters engage with EU energy policy and the interdisciplinary collaborations that informed the recommendations.

There are also structural consistencies across the policy recommendation chapters (Chapters 2–11) to support the accessibility of the book and to help stimulate dialogue across, and between, disciplines and actors. Each of the chapter titles are the policy recommendations that the chapters discuss; we hope that this will immediately communicate the headline messages to the readers from the point of the Contents page onwards. Moreover, at the start of each of the policy recommendation chapters are a series of ‘policy highlight’ bullets. These bullet points summarise how the chapter’s overall policy recommendation can be achieved and reference the interdisciplinary activities that informed the recommendation’s development. The conclusion section of the policy recommendation chapters expands upon each of these bullet points. Thus, we hope it is possible to get an overarching understanding of the policy recommendation by reading only the policy highlights at the start and the conclusions at the end.

The Forewords and Afterwords that book-end this book also facilitate dialogue on STEM-SSH (and wider) collaborations for low-carbon energy futures in Europe. The Forewords present the perspectives of two invited individuals, reflecting upon the importance of SSH research and SSH-STEM collaboration. The Afterwords have been written by SSH researchers (Afterword 1), STEM researchers (Afterword 2), a policy actor (Afterword 3), and members of the SSH CENTRE project’s Business Advisory Board (Afterword 4) who reflect upon the policy recommendations presented within the book, situating their reflections within their experiences and understandings.