Engaging social sciences in energy transition processes

Abstract

International audienceThis communication aims at addressing ways in which science, both engineering and social sciences, can develop forms of engagement in energy transition processes. It starts with the assumption that considering climate-energy issues as standard field of academic inquiry is certainly not enough: their collective and temporal dimensions (urgency, scale, intensity …) challenge our commitments, collaborations, methodologies, practices of fieldwork, modes of financing academic research, and position as scientist and/or citizen in order to be genuinely addressed. These changes may take many roads depending on the types of issues we study or the types of research institution we belong to. Some commitments are publicly asserted while others are actively developed in the private sphere. Certainly, many researchers try to find their way between institutional expectations and personal values. Beyond the buzzword of “science committed to action”, this communication intends to collectively learn from exchanging about grounded experiments between researchers, engineers and NGOs in different countries