The SHAPE ENERGY Summer School - interdisciplinary debates with PhD researchers

The European Union (EU) funded Horizon 2020 ‘Social sciences and Humanities for Advancing Policy in European ENERGY’ (SHAPE ENERGY) project organised an international summer school for Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) working within energy-social sciences and humanities (energy-SSH). This multidisciplinary summer school – entitled ‘Advancing Energy Policy Summer School’ – focused on how energy-SSH research can contribute to tackling the many energy-related challenges in Europe. Key energy topics were discussed with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity and on the translation of academic research into policy and practice, including: • Global energy dilemmas; • Energy transition; • Public engagement and energy citizenship; • Consumption and social practices; • Energy poverty. Advanced researchers and practitioners involved in leading European energy projects were presenting their expertise and the role of energy-SSH research for policy and practice while the summer school was also an opportunity to meet and collaborate with other ESRs from a range of disciplines. Analysing the outputs of the summer school allowed us to draw attention to four recommendations, which could serve as points of reflection during the organisation of any future ESR and/or interdisciplinary SHAPE ENERGY activities: • Make more explicit/visible the ‘implicits’ of the various disciplines and, while proposing a workshop, consider more carefully the time needed by each discipline to produce a ‘rigorous’ outcome/output. • Pay attention to the fact that mainstream economic thinking innervates all disciplines. This element should be taken into greater consideration in prospective research as it influences the way the future is envisioned and closes alternative paths that could have been taken. • Better consider the cultural background of the participants when asking them to work together, or at least make more explicit not only the rules of the exercise but also the cultural implicit behind it. • Be sensitive to the gender and age of the participants, as these obviously play a role in how individuals express and put themselves forward. As it is crucial to devote time and resources, and to employ experts when implementing gender perspectives in research programmes and policy-making; more attention should be paid to this point as well as to how older researchers might influence the youngest.