3S WP 2012-14 Hargreaves – Opening the black box of the household: Understanding how householders interact with feedback from smart energy monitors

Current models of the role of energy feedback in helping to reduce energy use, assume it fills an information deficit in individual energy consumers’ knowledge and thus encourages them, rationally, to reduce their consumption levels either to save money or the environment. Based on 15 semi? structured interviews with participants trialling a range of smart…

Science, Trust and Public Engagement – exploring future pathways to good governance

The Science, Trust and Public Engagement project comprised a major review of public concerns about the governance of emerging science and technology through a meta-analysis of 17 UK public dialogues sponsored by Sciencewise on subjects ranging from nanotechnology and synthetic biology, through to low carbon energy and geoengineering of climate change. This analysis identified five…

Critical perspectives on public engagement in science and environmental risk – ESRC seminar series

The past decade has seen a dramatic rise in public engagement and participatory modes of governing science, technology and the environment, promoted by arguments that it enhances trust, acceptance, and the quality and social responsibility of science and decision-making. Most academic and practical effort in this field to date has been channelled into developing engagement…

Participation, politics and actor dynamics in low carbon energy transitions

This report comes from a Transition Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy workshop which took place 21-22 March 2012. The workshop aimed to develop a more comprehensive system-wide exploration of the diverse forms and sites of participation in low carbon energy transitions, and to build on this broader conception of participation to explore actor dynamics, inclusion…

Critical participatory governance: connections, learning and reflection

London, Thursday 17 February 2011  This final workshop of the two-year ESRC Seminar Series ‘Critical perspectives on public engagement in science and environmental risk’ drew together insights and themes from across the seminars, which sought to consolidate a new field of critical public engagement research and practice in the context of anticipatory governance of emerging technologies…

Participation, power and sustainable energy futures

Thursday 26 October 2010, SPRU, University of Sussex The fourth workshop in the ESRC seminar series Critical Perspectives on Public Engagement in Science and Environmental Risk explored both formal and informal forms of public engagement and participation in the context of energy systems and transitions to sustainability. The energy system and the need to build more…

Natural hazards and critical public participation

Thursday 10 June 2010, University of East Anglia The third workshop of the ESRC seminar series Critical Perspectives on Public Engagement in Science and Environmental Risk explored the topic of emerging forms of public engagement and participation in the context of geologic and flood hazards. The management of natural hazards has traditionally been dominated by…