Nickhil is a 29-year-old Energy Engineer from Bangalore, India. He is currently a PhD student at UEA, working on an EU-funded project on Smart Home Technologies. His research areas include sustainability transitions, stakeholder management, and social sustainability. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Melton Foundation where he develops skill-based workshops for youth engagement around…
I am a PhD researcher in the Centre for Social and Economic Research for the Global Environment (CSERGE) and the Science, Society and Sustainability (3S) research group. As an environmental scientist, I have developed a particular interest in nature-based solutions (NBS) and their application to address societal challenges in an increasingly warming world. So far,…
New 3S PhD researcher Cat Acheson shares her perspective on the role and policing of publics at COP26. COP26 has been widely portrayed as a make-or-break moment for global efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change. During the first week of the conference, I joined protests on the ground in Glasgow, with a diverse coalition of…
There are 4 competition funded PhD projects advertised at UEA with researchers from the 3S group. MAPPING PARTICIPATION IN ENERGY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND NET ZERO will be supervised by Dr Helen Pallett and Professor Jason Chilvers, and is part of the UEA Science Faculty funding competition. To date, approaches to involving the public in decisions…
3S members Laurie Waller and Jason Chilvers have a new paper in Science, Technology and Human Values analysing controversy over proposals for the large-scale removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CDR), in collaboration with Tyndall Centre colleague Tim Rayner. The study combines a digital method (web-querying) with document analysis to map debates about two CDR approaches:…
I am a PhD researcher in the Science, Society and Sustainability (3S) Research Group and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. My research explores sustainability-focused innovations in societal systems and in social practices, and how these two approaches can be linked up effectively. Working in partnership with Norfolk County Council, my project aims to…
3S member Casper Laing Ebbensgaard has recently published two short chapters in the book Interior Realms. The first of these chapters, entitled ‘Collective Matter, Vertical Life’, explores the home as a site of cultural production in the vertical night. Through a vignette that follows the routines of two residents in a high-rise in central, east…
3S member Martin Mahony has two new articles out on the nature and influence of global environmental assessments.
The first, co-authored with Maud Borie (KCL), Noam Obermeister and Mike Hulme (Cambridge University), compares the knowledge-making practices of the IPCC and IPBES, the global bodies responsible for assessing science around climate change and biodiversity loss respectively.
The second article, published with a number of fellow participants in a 2019 workshop at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), argues that in order to understand the effectiveness of GEAs, we need to go beyond just tracking the translation of their findings into policy.
Midnight Sun examines everyday spaces and technologies of night in the vertical city. By displaying bespoke photography, digital media, and sculptural artworks in close dialogue with research materials drawn from everyday life in the vertical city, the exhibition questions how we might reckon with the entangled hi/stories of life in the nocturnal city. The exhibition…
Dr Irene Lorenzoni (3S Research Group, UEA) 3S Seminar, 19th May 2021, 16:00-17:00 BST on MS Teams (please email Mandy Harmer <Amanda.Hamer@uea.ac.uk> if you would like to attend, an invite will be sent before the seminar). The standard advice to politicians confronting long-term challenges such as decarbonisation is to adopt commitment devices such as binding policies. Yet…
Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh (CAST & University of Bath) 3S Seminar, 21th April 2021, 16:00-17:00 BST on MS Teams (please email Mandy Harmer <Amanda.Hamer@uea.ac.uk> if you would like to attend, an invite will be sent before the seminar). In this talk, I will present recent findings from public deliberation (e.g., Climate Assembly UK) and opinion surveys to…
3S members Helen Pallett and Jason Chilvers are among the authors of a new briefing note on public engagement with algorithms in public services in the UK. This briefing note is one of the outputs of the ‘Just Public Algorithms‘ Project which was funded by the Not Equal Network+ (EPSRC). The briefing note summarises the…
3S member Harriet Dudley recently had her first lead author publication. It was a ScienceBrief review paper that reviewed the existing evidence of the impact of independent expert advisory bodies on the design and delivery of climate policy. The review paper synthesises findings from more than 20 peer−reviewed scientific articles gathered using ScienceBrief. The publication was…
Elliot Honeybun-Arnolda (3S Research Group, UEA) 3S Seminar, 17th March, 16:00-17:00 BST on MS Teams (please email Mandy Harmer <Amanda.Hamer@uea.ac.uk> if you would like to attend, an invite will be sent the day before the seminar). The environmental sciences are a relatively new branch of the history of science. Little is known about the origin of environmental sciences,…
Sara Skarp (3S Research Group, UEA) 3S Seminar, 17th March, 16:00-17:00 BST on MS Teams (please email Mandy Harmer <Amanda.Hamer@uea.ac.uk> if you would like to attend, an invite will be sent the day before the seminar). Being a somewhat yucky topic, waste is increasingly making us aware of its presence – whether it’s images of turtles caught…
3Sers Elliot Honeybun-Arnolda and Martin Mahony have reopened a call for papers on ‘Historical geographies of environmental futures’ for the RGS-IBG 2021 Annual Conference.
Deadline for abstracts: 19th February 2021
Tom Hargreaves of the 3S Research Group will be speaking at the regional launch of ClimateUEA. The event, to be held on Thursday 11th February 2021 between 5 and 6.15pm, seeks to showcase the depth and breadth of climate change research taking place across the University, to inspire new audiences and encourage collaboration across disciplines and sectors to stimulate positive climate action.
Dr Martin Mahony of the 3S Research Group is the first contributor to the Sainsbury Centre’s ‘New Perspectives’ series of podcasts, in which new light is shed upon collection items by artists, writers and researchers. In this podcast, Martin reflects on what a pair of Alaskan snow goggles can tell us about the links between colonialism, technology and climate change
3S members Elliot Honeybun-Arnolda and Tim O’Riordan have recently published a perspective piece that explores possible futures for environmentalism after the COVID-19 pandemic, in the Journal for the History of Environment and Society. The article explores the possibility of a transition to ecocentric futures in a post-pandemic world based on historical ideas of environmentalism. Environmentalism…
3S Members Tom Hargreaves and Jason Chilvers have published a new working paper, with colleagues. The paper explores the challenges of attempting to ‘model’ social practices, drawing on techniques from practice network analysis to map the links between both elements and practices. In doing so, the authors explore how participants ‘mapping’ their commuting practices and…
Dr Noel Longhurst of 3S is playing a key role in the recently launched Norwich Good Economy Commission. This new collaboration between the UEA and Norwich City Council is a 2-year active investigation into the economy of Norwich combining multi-disciplinary approaches. The project is part innovation lab, part think-tank which aims to develop a shared definition of and routes to a ‘good’ economy in the city. As a steering group member Noel is helping the commission take forward three exciting areas of activity.
Martin Mahony’s new book ‘Weather, Climate, and the Geographical Imagination’, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, is now available to purchase.
Dr Casper Ebbensgaard (3S Research Group, UEA) 3S Seminar, 18th November, 16:00-17:00 GMT on MS Teams (please email Mandy Harmer <Amanda.Hamer@uea.ac.uk> if you would like to attend, an invite will be sent the day before the seminar). In this paper, I investigate how the legal planning system in the UK encourages forms of residential high-rise development in…
Dr Laurie Waller (3S Research Group, UEA) 3S Seminar, 14th October, 16:00-17:00 BST on MS Teams (please email Mandy Harmer <Amanda.Hamer@uea.ac.uk> if you would like to attend, an invite will be sent the day before the seminar). The large-scale removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CDR) is a central focus of contemporary climate policy. Assessing the “real-world”…
3S members working on the FAB-GGR project have published a new article in the journal Wires Climate Change. Laurie Waller, Jason Chilvers and Irene Lorenzoni, along with colleagues from the Tyndall Centre reviewed the global literature on the feasibility of large-scale greenhouse gas removal (GGR), examining how social and political dimensions have been treated. The…
New funding announced today will see our 3S Research Group become a core part of the new five-year phase of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). As part of this significant investment 3S will establish and house the first ever national observatory for societal engagement with energy and net zero transitions, which is a new core…
I am a 1+3 PhD student in the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) and in the Science, Society & Sustainability (3S) Research Group. My research explores UK climate change governance, specifically the role of the UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC) in shaping the wider knowledge and governance landscapes in which specific…
3S’s PhD student Elliot Honeybun-Arnolda has been accepted as a visiting scholar at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, between January 2021-April 2021. Elliot will be at the RCC during the latter stages of his research and aims to explore the links between history of science and environmental history.
Members of 3S have put forward a vision for a sustainable future in a new collection of thought pieces published by the University of East Anglia. The short piece ’Making sustainability social’ was written by Jason Chilvers and Tom Hargreaves on behalf of 3S drawing on our key insights. ‘Visions of a Sustainable Future’ is…
UK Parliament announced in a press release today that Professor Jason Chilvers of 3S has been appointed to serve on the Academic Panel advising Climate Assembly UK. Climate Assembly UK is the UK’s first nationwide citizens’ assembly on climate change. It was commissioned by six cross-party House of Commons Select Committees in summer 2019 in…
3S Chair Jason Chilvers and Jan-Peter Voß (Berlin University of Technology) are advertising a Call for Papers for an open panel on “Democracy in the making” to be held at the 4S/EASST conference in Prague, 18-21 August 2020. They invite submissions which reconstruct how ‘the demos’ is enacted in practice and how this is supported by…
We currently have two competition-funded PhD positions available in the 3S Research Group, to start in September 2020. Both of these positions offer full funding for home and EU students and would be based in the School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, Norwich, UK. Tom Hargreaves and Gill Seyfang are the academic supervisors on the project…
3S’s Tom Hargreaves recently spoke at a major industry conference on the Future of Utilities: Smart Energy 2019. Across two days, the conference explored the range of ways that smarter technologies and approaches might change the UK energy system. Tom Hargreaves’ presentation focussed on the challenges householders face when engaging with smart home technologies. This drew…
I have always had an interest in environmental issues, I’m told in fact that I used to make and put up anti-whaling posters in primary school. That interest has broadened over the years to include policy and social issues but the core has remained the same. What was probably mostly youthful exuberance has grown up,…
I am an environmental social scientist conducting interdisciplinary, critically-constructive research around societal engagement with sustainability. I have developed this interest through the investigation of grassroots sustainability innovations, environmental movements, socio-technical energy transitions, and through the exploration of diverse forms of energy democracy in the UK and beyond. Across these areas, my research and teaching engages…
‘Just Public Algorithms’ is a project funded by Not Equal EPSRC Network+: Social Justice through the Digital Economy. It ran September 2019 – April 2020. The project was led by Helen Pallett, supported by Jason Chilvers and Catherine Price in 3S, and Simon Burall at Involve. The main aim of the ‘Just public algorithms’ project…
The enduring significance of the sciences of environmental change, and their impact global politics, has increasingly attracted the attention of historians of science (Edwards 2010; Howe 2014). Yet the definition of ‘environmental science’ is often taken for granted. In the post-war period the idea of ‘the environment’, and of a distinctive ‘environmental science’, began to…
3S researchers Tom Hargreaves and Noel Longhurst led a research programme in this 2-year (2016-2018) UK Energy Research Centre funded research project, based in UEA’s Centre for Competition Policy, which explored Equity and Justice in Energy Markets. As a whole, the research project was multi-disciplinary, drawing together research teams from a range of disciplines including:…
I am a PhD student in the Science, Society & Sustainability (3S) Research Group. I’m interested in the role environmental sciences play in the relations between science and society. My PhD seeks to uncover a history of environmental science, using The School of Environmental Sciences at UEA as a case-study. Broadly, my research interests include;…
FAB-GGR is an interdisciplinary project that aims to better understand the real-world feasibility and consequences of large-scale afforestation and biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) approaches to greenhouse gas removal (GGR). As part of FAB-GGR, 3S researchers – Jason Chilvers, Laurie Waller, Irene Lorenzoni – are studying the social and political feasibility of developing afforestation and…