Strategy

Vision & mission

Vision: To be the UK’s pre-eminent centre for whole systems energy research, working to deliver a secure, sustainable and just energy transition.

Mission: To conduct independent, interdisciplinary analysis, informing government, industry and civil society, and maximising impact through local, national, and international engagement.

Key Challenges

UKERC 2024-2029 is addressing four key challenges associated with the UK’s ongoing energy transition:

• The Delivery Challenge: managing the massive scale of new physical assets and capital needed to decarbonise the energy system.
• The Flexibility Challenge: understanding the role of new sources of flexibility necessary for the decarbonisation of heat, power and transport.
• The Geopolitical Challenge: provide ongoing research to address the complexities of existing fossil fuel and emerging low carbon supply chains and their global trends.
• The Affordability and Justice Challenge: understanding and mitigating any negative distributional impacts of the energy transition on households and wider society, including the impacts of high and volatile energy prices.

Four of our Research Activities directly tackle these challenges. Beyond this, the Centre has a range of National Capabilities, including the Public Engagement Observatory and Energy Data Centre to support our work, as well as dedicated capacity to provide timely and reactive research through our Responsive Research and Whole Systems Missions. These are managed by Theme Leads and for the 24-29 phase of work, newly introduced Theme Deputies.

Communications strategy

UKERC’s communications strategy is to deliver relevant and timely outputs that highlight our whole-systems expertise, inform key audiences and advance understanding of the transition to a net zero energy system.

Download the communications strategy here.

Engagement Statement

UKERC’s engagement statement is to ensure that our independent whole-systems expertise is visible, accessible and relevant to those shaping the UK’s transition to a secure, affordable and sustainable energy system. We do this by engaging stakeholders in inclusive, interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral exchanges that support evidence-informed decisions on energy system transition, including decarbonisation, security, affordability and justice, and maximise the impact of our research.

Download the engagement statement here.

Contact

These are ‘living’ documents and will be reviewed and updated to incorporate feedback and new emerging priorities. If you have any comments, please contact Jordan Willis.