On 25th January, we were proud to be part of the official launch of the SSH Centre (Social Science and Humanities for Climate, Energy and Transport Research Excellence) project, led by our colleagues at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK. The project engages with actors from across research, business, policy and citizens to contribute to accelerate the EU’s transition to carbon neutrality, through supporting:
– Social innovation
– Transdisciplinary policy advice
– Inclusive engagement
– SSH communities throughout Europe
The Centre was officially launched with a policy dialogue event in Brussels on the topic of ‘Co-creating the shift to clean mobility’. The event was expertly hosted by project partners Friends of Europe, and brought together policy makers, citizens, researchers and business actors for a public debate. A recording from the event can be watched here. This debate was the first of a series that will be hosted throughout the project to bring a broad range of knowledge, policy and citizen needs together.
At this early stage in the project, we have also launched a call for evidence on representation on the representation of SSH from Southern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. This will feed into two workshops, being hosted by BC3 (Spain) and the Institute for Regional Studies (Hungary). If you are an SSH or STEM researcher on climate-related themes, and have spent at least part of your career in S or CEE, please complete our call for evidence, here.
Other initiatives through the project include:
- A series of literature briefs on key policy topics, and a methods toolkit for engaging with social science knowledge.
- Support to STEM-SSH collaborations for small research projects to contribute to a series of edited books.
- Knowledge Brokerage training for early career researchers to work with cities in their low carbon transitions.
To stay up to date about how to get involved, check out the project website.
The CzechGlobe role in the project is an ongoing evaluation of these interventions to see which create change, support collaborations, and improve the representation of social sciences and humanities in policy and action. We will be identifying what works and what doesn’t and feeding it back into the project to shape our own activities. We are therefore doing a combination of interviews with participants from across project activities (e.g. collaborations, knowledge brokerage training, policy insight events), and reflexive workshops with project partners. We will produce a research and innovation roadmap that should support meaningful SSH contributions in climate, energy and transport research and action.
SustainableCZ 
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