MISTRAL-ITN (813738)
Published February 17, 2022 | Version v1
Journal article Restricted

Beyond technology: A research agenda for social sciences and humanities research on renewable energy in Europe

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Jagiellonian University, Poland
  • 2. Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
  • 3. Queen's University Belfast, UK
  • 4. Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
  • 5. Utrecht University, the Netherlands
  • 6. Anglia Ruskin University, UK
  • 7. Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
  • 8. Public Administration Institute for Turkey and the Middle East, Turkey
  • 9. Instituto Universit´ario de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Cis-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal
  • 10. Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
  • 11. University of Turin, Italy
  • 12. Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland
  • 13. University of Maribor, Slovenia
  • 14. CSPS, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia
  • 15. CICERO - Center for International Climate Research, Norway
  • 16. University of Granada, Spain
  • 17. University of Valencia, Spain
  • 18. University of Lisbon, Institute of Social Sciences, Portugal
  • 19. Aalborg University, Denmark
  • 20. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies and University of Potsdam, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Germany
  • 21. Erasmus University Rotterdam, Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT), the Netherlands
  • 22. Verband Schweizerischer Elektrizit¨atsunternehmen, Switzerland
  • 23. University of Bourgogne Franche-Comt´e, France
  • 24. Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden
  • 25. Masaryk University, Czech Republic
  • 26. General Secretariat for Research and Innovation, Greece
  • 27. Universita di Pisa, Italy
  • 28. University of Stavanger, Norway
  • 29. Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
  • 30. University of East Anglia, UK
  • 31. University of Sussex, UK and University of Aarhus, Denmark

Description

This article enriches the existing literature on the importance and role of the social sciences and humanities
(SSH) in renewable energy sources research by providing a novel approach to instigating the future research
agenda in this field. Employing a series of in-depth interviews, deliberative focus group workshops and a systematic
horizon scanning process, which utilised the expert knowledge of 85 researchers from the field with
diverse disciplinary backgrounds and expertise, the paper develops a set of 100 priority questions for future
research within SSH scholarship on renewable energy sources. These questions were aggregated into four main
directions: (i) deep transformations and connections to the broader economic system (i.e. radical ways of (re)
arranging socio-technical, political and economic relations), (ii) cultural and geographical diversity (i.e.
contextual cultural, historical, political and socio-economic factors influencing citizen support for energy transitions),
(iii) complexifying energy governance (i.e. understanding energy systems from a systems dynamics
perspective) and (iv) shifting from instrumental acceptance to value-based objectives (i.e. public support for
energy transitions as a normative notion linked to trust-building and citizen engagement). While this agenda is
not intended to be—and cannot be—exhaustive or exclusive, we argue that it advances the understanding of SSH
research on renewable energy sources and may have important value in the prioritisation of SSH themes needed
to enrich dialogues between policymakers, funding institutions and researchers. SSH scholarship should not be
treated as instrumental to other research on renewable energy but as intrinsic and of the same hierarchical
importance.

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