New project seeks best collaboration methods for creating carbon-neutral neighbourhoods
How do you get citizens more involved in energy transition projects? This is the central question of the new transdisciplinary research project EmPowerEd. As a consortium partner, Leiden University is focusing on effective and inclusive collaboration between citizens, municipalities and industry.
Carbon-neutral neighbourhoods or terraced buildings in urban environments play a key role in sustainable solutions to global warming. Building these Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) takes not only technological innovation but also social momentum: residents need to feel involved in developing such neighbourhoods and collaborate with a broad range of stakeholders. These include municipalities, utility companies, community organisations, energy collectives and housing associations.
In the EmPowerEd transdisciplinary project, researchers from various institutes and disciplines are working together to find technological solutions for PEDs and effective collaboration methods. ‘EmPowerEd is a socio-technological project’, says Margaret Gold from the Citizen Science Lab in Leiden. ‘It’s about implementing technological innovations while centring people – the residents.’
'EmPowerEd is about implementing technological innovations while centring people – the residents.'
Five living labs
The project will run for five years and has 7 million euros of Dutch Research Council (NWO) funding. It will use five municipalities as ‘living labs’: Groningen, Nijmegen, Eindhoven, Tilburg and Bronckhorst. ‘But the findings will also be applicable to other locations’, says Gold. ‘It’s about the best ways to navigate transitions together and how to engage the community as a valued partner.’
Best collaboration methods
From Leiden, the LIACS (Wessel Kraaij) and the Citizen Science Lab (Margaret Gold) are involved in EmPowerEd. The researchers’ focus is on engaging citizens in the development of PEDs and creating a toolbox of effective methods to foster collaboration.
‘This toolbox’, Gold explains, ‘will be a collection of the best methods for collaborating and advancing PED development. This could mean co-creation methods, dialogue methods and workshop formats. We’ll explore the best methods over the next few years. Another important part of the toolbox – and this is where Wessel and LIACS come in – is the role of data and data science in supporting action, policy and management. This includes monitoring technical solutions for sustainable heating and citizen science data to help meet residents’ needs and objectives.
The first step of the project involves mapping existing public engagement and citizen science initiatives relating to energy transition. ‘We’ll then identify the best methods for fostering collaboration. Our main focus will be on groups that have been harder to engage so far. This includes individuals who are not yet interested in energy transition because of financial constraints. Or tenants who are not responsible for their buildings and transition measures.’
EmPowerEd is led by prof. Floor van Alkemade (TUe). The project is the result of a collaboration between Leiden University and TNO, Better Together.
Banner photo: Unsplash / Raze Solar