Synergies

The Horizon 2020 COMETS project (2019-2022) quantifies the evolution and contribution of Collective Action Initiatives to the energy transition efforts at the EU and the national level in six countries. It aims to advance the scientific knowledge on the motives, desires, objectives and barriers of such collective action initiatives. ENCLUDE will consider results on incentives and aspirations of Collective Action Initiatives in its research design.

The Horizon 2020 COMPILE project (2018-2022) aims at setting up energy communities in four EU countries that have a strong focus on social innovation. A maturity framework and a set of indicators are developed within the project to assess the maturity of the communities’ governance structures. The result of this project will contribute to the understanding of external and organizational framework conditions for consolidating energy citizenship in ENCLUDE.

The Horizon 2020 DECIDE project (2020-2023) has a goal to accelerate collective energy actions and engage European end-consumers more actively in the energy market. The project aims to be a hub for EU-wide exchange of collective energy-related projects and includes pilot community energy activities in seven European countries. DECIDE will give access to a large range of EU-wide cases and empirical insights to be used in ENCLUDE

In order to reach the ambitious challenges of the European Union’s Green Deal and the Paris Agreement to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050 while also driving innovation and job growth, swift action is needed involving a broad range of actors. Within this wider challenge of energy transition and climate neutrality, the concept of energy citizenship aligns with each of the EU’s four strategic objectives (decarbonizing buildings, renewables uptake, energy storage, and sustainable mobility). DIALOGUES central methodological pillar is grounded in tested inter- and transdisciplinary techniques, with a spotlight on open innovation and co-design of the research process through novel Citizen Action Lab in 8 countries.  

The Horizon 2020 ECHOES project (2016-2019) analyzed individual/collective energy choices accounting for different contexts in which energy choices are made. Main factors enabling collective energy and pro-environmental choices, as well as individual and collective psychological drivers, were analyzed. ENCLUDE will build on the energy cultures framework as well as the ECHOES database.

What are the social, economic, and legal conditions that will enable a shift in the energy model: from a centralized energy regime to a decentralized one, from a society of passive energy consumers to one of empowered, engaged energy citizens? Gathering insights from the fields of law, economics and psychology, EC² will provide answers on how to facilitate and strengthen energy citizenship. Knowledge co-creation with municipalities, energy communities, and citizens will enhance the research to deliver recommendations that support the EU’s energy and decarbonisation goals. 

The Horizon 2020 ENABLE.EU project (2016-2019) identified the key determinants of/interrelations between individual and collective energy choices and their impact on regulatory, technological and investment decisions. ENCLUDE will consider the project's results both in qualitative and quantitative assessments.

EnergyPROSPECTS will work with a critical understanding of energy citizenship that is grounded in state-of-the-art Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) insights. EnergyPROSPECTS aims to develop a broad understanding of energy citizenship as a policy concept, a sociotechnical imaginary, a knowing-of-governance. The project will identify and examine a range of cross-cutting issues in energy citizenship, which will inform iterative typology development and criteria for case selection. Drawing on existing databases and a search for new cases, a selection of 500 initiatives, as well as  mapping and typology refinement exercise to demonstrate the depth/breadth of the energy citizenship concept in theory and practice will be performed. 

The Horizon 2020 ENTRUST project (2015-2018) aimed at increasing understanding of how individuals’ behavior around energy is shaped by both technological systems and socio-demographic factors. The project's results will be important for ENCLUDE to understand the broader contextual factors in which energy citizenship emerges.

This project (2017-2021) explores crowd-based initiatives hoping to gain a better understanding of which forms of regulation, cooperation and supervision are needed in order to ensure that crowd-based initiatives result in socially responsible innovations that reflect public values. The result of this project will contribute to the understanding of external framework conditions for emerging and consolidating energy citizenship in ENCLUDE.

GRETA is a project that paves the path to active energy citizenship and communities. Energy citizenship means that every one of us can use energy in a sustainable way and participate in the energy transition.  The EU aims to reach climate neutrality by 2050. This goal can only be achieved if citizens are given equal opportunity to take action towards it. GRETA studies the social side of the energy transition as it wants to understand how energy citizenship works in different contexts and geographical levels.  

The Horizon 2020 NUDGE project (2020-2023) aims to tailor the design of behavioral interventions to individual psychological and contextual variables by leveraging data collection capabilities of digital mediation Platforms and data analytics. This enables a contextual research protocol to measure the impact of the implemented behavioral interventions. NUDGE results will provide insights to ENCLUDE on the impact digital tools have on the emergence and consolidation of energy citizenship.

SocialRES aims at closing non-technological research gaps that impede the widespread uptake of social innovation business and service models in the European energy sector. Through the project’s research, it will be set the basis for a better understanding of the socio-economic, socio-cultural, socio-political, and gender factors that influence the behavior of consumers in the energy system. What’s more, the project will foster the development of new cooperation patterns among the key enabling actors for energy democracy: cooperatives, energy aggregators, and crowdfunding platforms. 

SSH CENTRE will engage directly with stakeholders across research, policy, and business (including citizens) to strengthen social innovation, SSH-STEM collaboration, transdisciplinary policy advice, inclusive engagement, and SSH communities across Europe, accelerating the EU’s transition to carbon neutrality. The project will directly address this challenge by supporting cross-sectoral collaborations and empowerment of citizens and networks towards the development of socially innovative solutions for the EU’s climate transition. 

The key question of the new TRANSFORMER project is: how can European regions become climate-neutral? The project partners intend to develop and test new transformation concepts at intersections of socio-technical regimes such as transportation, energy production, and agriculture. The project team will work on different priorities in the following four regions: in the Ruhr Metropolis, the focus will be on hydrogen technology for industry and transport; in Emilia-Romagna in Italy, the focus will be on harmonizing mobility and energy; in Lower Silesia in Poland, the focus will be on developing rail infrastructure and hydrogen buses; in Western Macedonia in Greece, the focus will be on e-mobility, circular economy, and CO2 storage.