Addressing climate change and realising net zero demands long-term systemic changes and the meaningful engagement of society. However, most existing approaches to public engagement focus on communicating to the public or inviting publics to engage in discrete one-off processes – such as behaviour change initiatives, attitude surveys, and deliberative processes – in specific parts of wider systems. In response, new approaches to participation are emerging in fields like Science and Technology Studies and across the social sciences which view public engagements as highly diverse, constructed, and interrelating together in wider systems and ‘ecologies of participation’. With this, new methods capable of mapping diverse forms of public engagement are emerging to enhance democratic engagement and support more socially responsive and just transitions. Such approaches are being pioneered by the Public Engagement Observatory of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC).
This funded PhD project aims to further advance this research by developing a situated and citizen-centred approach to mapping public engagement with energy and climate change. The project will entail: (i) reviewing and receiving training in concepts and approaches to mapping public engagement; (ii) developing a methodology that involves citizens in mapping how they and others are engaging with energy and climate change; (iii) applying this method in a situated study of ecologies of participation around a particular energy and climate change-related issue; and (iv) articulating the contributions of the study for academic research, policy and society. This PhD will make a major contribution to approaches for mapping participation that better understand plural public engagements, values and actions and how they should be recognised and responded to. The project is affiliated with the UKERC Public Engagement Observatory and would suit excellent candidates with a social science or interdisciplinary environmental science background. Some knowledge of Science and Technology Studies is desirable but not essential.
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