Exploring sustainable energy from all angles

The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) is partnering with NESTA to foster interdisciplinary collaboration on the big issues in energy research, such as demand reduction and environmental sustainability.

Carbon Crucible will bring together early- to mid-career researchers working in science, technology and the social sciences, with the aim of sparking new and innovative solutions to help the UK reduce its carbon footprint and plan for a low-carbon future.

UKERC is a consortium of universities and research centres from across the UK.

It takes a whole-systems approach to research into sustainable energy, examining technical aspects of carbon production such as transport infrastructure and industry, as well as the impact of our behavioural choices and environmental factors.

"Energy is a large and complex system," says John Loughhead, Executive Director of UKERC.

"To develop sustainable energy solutions we have to understand the ‘big picture' for carbon production and this means helping specialists from different fields of energy research work together in an interdisciplinary and collaborative way."

Breaking down barriers

One factor that can discourage researchers from taking the interdisciplinary approach is that this kind of work doesn't always receive the same peer-group recognition as classic single-discipline research.

With backing from three of the UK's research councils and high-profile researchers amongst its members, UKERC is helping to break down this barrier.

Its researchers are exploring how the UK's energy system might respond to decarbonisation and future changes in the security of energy supply.

Interdisciplinary teams - including economists, social scientists, experts in energy networks and environmental scientists - are working on different scenarios for what the UK's energy system could look like in 2050.

The interdisciplinary model that UKERC has established regularly attracts interest from other countries in Europe, as well as the US and China. "I think the UK is seen as one of the early movers in getting to grips with true interdisciplinary working," says John.

"Overseas research institutions recognise that the work we're doing at UKERC is tackling a problem that they too are facing but haven't yet developed a means of addressing."

Establishing understanding

For the interdisciplinary approach to be effective, all participants need to be able to communicate and share their ideas freely with one another.

At first, this can be quite challenging since conceptual frameworks, problem-solving approaches and research methodologies tend to differ across disciplines.

Even language can cause problems, when the meaning of words can vary across scientific disciplines. "Specialists from different areas need to learn to speak the same language," says John.

"Until mutual understanding is established between the interdisciplinary researchers, confusion and misinterpretation can prevent them from making progress on the issue they're working on."

The starting point for establishing this mutual understanding is for each specialist to describe the issue to the rest of the interdisciplinary working group, explaining the problem as they see it. This needs to take place in an open and collaborative setting that fosters communication.

Over time, the collective focus on a single issue leads to a shared understanding throughout the group, with each researcher starting to see their own perspective as part of a bigger picture and gaining insight into what specialists from other fields can bring to the table.

"When we first started out in 2004, UKERC was really a collection of single-discipline research projects. Over time, we've established effective communication between specialists from a very wide range of disciplines and we're now putting interdisciplinary research into practice," explains John.

"Carbon Crucible will give early-career researchers a valuable headstart in adopting interdisciplinary practices in their work as well as an appreciation of the complexity of the sustainable energy challenge."