This webpage includes additional information for the UKERC5 proposal, which was not possible to include in the submitted documents due to constraints on submission length. Specifically it includes details regarding the expertise of the Management Board and organisational letters of support.
Robert took over as the Director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) in 2020. He is Professor of Energy Policy and Technology at Imperial College London, where he was the Director for the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology (ICEPT) and the Director of Policy at the Energy Futures Lab. He has extensive teaching and post-graduate training experience. His research interests are wide ranging and include electricity market design, energy system modelling and scenarios, technology assessment, low carbon heat and policy support for innovation. He has written more than 100 academic papers, reports and monographs. Robert is a Fellow and Council member of the Energy Institute. He is also Council member and former Chair of the British Institute of Energy Economists (BIEE). He is a member of the Academic Advisory Panel for Ofgem (2018 to date). He has been a specialist advisor to 3 Parliamentary Select Committees, has extensive engagement with UK policymaking, and worked in UK government in the early 2000s. He appears regularly in press and broadcast media, hosts UKERC’s podcast series and has a keen interest in science communication.
View Rob’s Imperial College London profile here.
Keith Bell is holds the Scottish Chair in Future Power Systems at the University of Strathclyde and is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He joined the university in 2005 having previously worked as a post-doctoral researcher in Manchester and Naples, and been a system development engineer with National Grid. He has been a UKERC Co-Director since 2014 and, in Phase 4, leads the Energy Infrastructure Transitions theme. In July 2018, he became Scientific Director of the Electrical Infrastructure Research Hub established by the University of Strathclyde with the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and the University of Manchester. In April 2019, he became a member of the Climate Change Committee. Keith and his team at Strathclyde have collaborated with many UK and European industry and academic partners in numerous engineering research projects. Keith is an invited expert member of CIGRE Study Committee C1 on System Development and Economics, Secretary of the Executive Board of the Power Systems Computation Conference and a member of the Executive Committee of the IET Power Academy, an initiative to promote electric power engineering as a graduate career in the UK. Keith has advised the Scottish Government, the Republic of Ireland government, Ofgem and the UK government on power systems issues. He is a member of the Scottish Energy Advisory Board and, in 2023, was a member of the Electricity Networks Commissioner’s advisory board, helping to shape the Commissioner’s report and recommendations published in August 2023. In late 2023/early 2024 he acted as special advisor to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry into long duration energy storage. His main research interests are around planning and operation of electricity systems and, increasingly, low carbon energy systems more broadly.
View Keith’s University of Strathclyde profile here.
Dr Jess Britton is a Research Fellow in Local and Regional Energy Systems at the University of Edinburgh. She is an interdisciplinary social scientist who specialises in the policy and practices of energy system change, particularly in relation to the role of city and regional actors, new business models and devolution. She is currently Deputy Lead for UKERC’s Theme 2 Local and Regional Energy Systems, leading a project on local and regional energy systems in the context of UK devolution. Previously Jess worked at the University of Exeter researching the relationship between energy governance and innovation, as well as the changing role of local actors in decarbonisation. She has published across a range of topics including; heat decarbonisation, smart energy cities, the role of local government in sustainable energy, green growth and new energy business models. She has also carried out consultancy for Innovate UK, Ofgem, Sustainability First, the Centre for Sustainable Energy and Bristol Green Capital. She was a contributing author to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and a member of the BEIS/DESNZ Smart Systems Forum (2018-22). She is currently a committee member of the RGS-IBG Energy Geographies Research Group and a member of the Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Committee for Northern Powergrid’s Community DSO project. She has previously worked as a Sustainability Manager in local government and the NHS.
View Jess’ University of Edinburgh profile here.
Dr Caroline Kuzemko is a Reader in International Political Economy at the University of Warwick, with research interests in the politics of sustainable energy transitions. She is the Deputy Leader of the UKERC research theme ‘Energy in a Global Context’, and PI of the ‘Beyond Brexit: UK Zero Carbon Energy Policy’ project. From 2016-2019 she held an ESRC Future Research Leader grant for her project on ‘Power Distributions: Local Government and Sustainable Energy’. She is an Associate Editor of the journal Energy Research & Social Science. Her books include: The Energy Security-Climate Nexus: Institutional Change in the UK and Beyond (2013); The Global Energy Challenge: Environment, Development & Security (2016); and the Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy & Natural Resources (2018). She co-edited a Special Issue on ‘New Directions in the IPE of Energy’ for the Review of International Political Economy; and she has published in the Review of International Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Energy Research & Social Science, Environment and Planning: C and Policy and Politics. From 1994 to 2002 she worked in investment banking, as a Director for UBS.
View Caroline’s University of Warwick profile here.
Dr Jamie Speirs is based the University of Strathclyde, Centre for Energy Policy, where he is Reader and Deputy Director. Prior to this Jamie was a Research Fellow at Imperial’s Sustainable Gas Institute (SGI), where he led the SGI White Paper Series, conducting research on the social, technical and economic issues affecting energy policy in the UK, Europe and globally. Jamie has previously been a UKERC researcher in the Technology and Policy Assessment theme, during which time he conducted systematic evidence reviews of contentious topics in the energy arena. As co-author of the Global Oil Depletion report he applied this methodology to examine estimates of future oil production. More recently Jamie has led systematic research into the availability of critical materials for low carbon technologies, publishing a range of research reports, including the Energy Materials Availability Handbook.
View Jamie’s University of Strathclyde profile here.
Professor Peter Taylor holds a Chair in Sustainable Energy Systems at the University of Leeds where his interdisciplinary research addresses the challenges of accelerating the transition to sustainable low-carbon energy systems. Peter leads the Industrial Decarbonisation theme in UKERC and is also a member of the Supergen Energy Networks Hub and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy. He has acted as advisor to a number of organisations including the Climate Change Committee, the former Department of Energy and Climate Change and various United Nations and European Union bodies. Prior to joining Leeds, Peter was Head of the Energy Technology Policy Division at the International Energy Agency in Paris, where he was responsible for high profile publications such as the Energy Technology Perspectives and the Energy Technology Roadmap series. In an earlier consultancy career, he was Technical Director of a major UK energy and environmental practice.
View Peter’s University of Leeds profile here.
Dr Mark Winskel is a Senior Lecturer in the Science, Technology and Innovation Studies group in the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. His research interests include energy policy, interdisciplinarity in energy research, and research-policy exchange. He is a Co-Investigator in UKERC Phase 4, working on systematic evidence reviews with the Technology and Policy Analysis theme. Mark was previously UKERC’s national Research Co-ordinator (2009-14) and led a review of UKERC’s interdisciplinary research achievements. He has an interdisciplinary background, with degrees in physical, environmental and social sciences. He has been researching energy systems, policies and organisations for over 25 years.
View Mark’s University of Edinburgh profile here.
Jianzhong Wu holds the position of Professor of Multi-Vector Energy Systems and is Head of School of Engineering at Cardiff University. Additionally, he serves as a co-Editor-in-Chief of Applied Energy. He is: Co-Director of UK Energy Research Centre; Co-Director of EPSRC Supergen Energy Networks Hub; Member of the UK Government Taxonomy Energy Working Group; Member of Northern Powergrid Science and Technology Advisory Panel; Member of Scottish Power Energy Networks Independent Net Zero Advisory Council; Member of the Scottish Power Energy Networks Strategic Stakeholder Panel for England and Wales; and Member of the Wales Smart Energy System Group. Prof. Wu specialises in the fields of Smart Grid and Multi-Vector Energy Systems, which encompass integrated energy infrastructures. He is recognised as one of the pioneering researchers who initiated and established the research areas of multi-energy systems and Peer-to-Peer energy trading, which have emerged as two crucial areas of energy research worldwide. He has contributed to more than 60 European Commission, the UK research and innovation councils, and industry funded projects as either a Principal Investigator or a Co-Investigator. His research has resulted in over 300 peer-reviewed publications, including 10 Clarivate ESI Highly Cited Papers. Additionally, he has co-authored several books, including “Smart Grid: Technology and Applications” (2012, Wiley), “Smart Electricity Distribution Networks” (2017, CRC) and “The Future of Gas Networks” (2019, Springer).
He is President of the UK Branch of China Electrotechnical Society, Associate Editor-in-Chief of CSEE Journal of Power & Energy Systems, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of IET Energy Systems Integration, Director of International UNiLAB on Synergies between Energy Networks, and member-at-large of the IEEE Technical Committee on Carbon Neutrality, which further demonstrate his commitment to advancing research and promoting collaborations in sustainable energy and achieving Net Zero. Prof Wu is a member of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero Taxonomy Energy Working Group, which provides expert advice to the Government on the development of technical screening criteria (TSC) in the energy sector. He was also invited as a Witness to participate in the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee inquiry into the role of hydrogen in achieving Net Zero. Additionally, he has served as a member of the Northern Powergrid technical panel of ED2 business plan.
View Jianzhong’s Cardiff University profile here.
Theme 1: Delivering Energy System Infrastructure University of Strathclyde and University of Leeds
Theme 2: Operating a Highly Renewable and Largely Electrified Energy System – Cardiff University
Theme 3: Geopolitics, Energy Security and Resilience – University of Warwick
Theme 4: Affordability, Justice and Economic Impacts – University of Edinburgh
Theme 5: Responsive Research – University of Strathclyde
Public Engagement Observatory – University of East Anglia
Energy Data Centre – Science and Technology and Facilities Council