A Lancaster University professor is awarded a £1.15m Future Leaders Fellowship for research putting citizens at the centre of the move to a zero-carbon energy system.

Dr Rebecca Willis, a Professor in Practice at the Lancaster Environment Centre, is one of 90 up and coming researchers and innovators nationwide identified by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) as amongst “the most brilliant people working in the country.”

She will use her four-year, £1.15 million Future Leaders Fellowship to develop new approaches to how energy policy is developed and implemented, to get people actively involved in transforming how we produce and use energy.

“The UK has committed to reducing carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050,” says Becky. “This is a huge challenge, and there is one critical unknown: how will people respond, and what scope is there for people to live their lives differently? This is the question that I will help to answer, through this Fellowship.”

Becky is focussing on governance - the rules, institutions and regulations that govern our energy systems. The problem with energy governance today, she argues, is that is treats people just as passive consumers.

“Achieving the net-zero goal will require people’s active participation, switching to different forms of electricity use, transport and heating; and giving informed consent to infrastructure projects and policy shifts.

“Increasingly we don’t just buy things, we own power plants as well – solar panels on roofs, or a local community co-operating to install and manage hydro power. And we also have a role as citizens through our vote, or through protest – levels of concern about climate change are at an all-time high.

“Yet when it comes to governance there’s very little acknowledgement of this wide engagement. In governance, we are all seen as consumers.”

Becky, who was previously vice-chair of the Sustainable Development Commission and has been helping to run the UK’s first national citizens’ assembly on climate change, is setting up a team at Lancaster to carry out this research. They will be using novel methodologies and an iterative research process which brings citizens together with businesses and governance organisations, encouraging deliberation about the future shape of our energy system.

Director ofthe UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Kirsty Grainger said: “The Future Leaders Fellows represent some of the most brilliant people working in the country. We’re supporting researchers from every background helping them become the research and innovation leaders of the future.”

The research is a partnership between Lancaster University, the Committee on Climate Change and the Energy Systems Catapult, as well as two academic partners: The Centre for Climate and Social Transformations (CAST) and the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC).