Our researchers are involved in a number of interesting and significant research projects, working in collaboration with partner institutions and funding bodies to address the challenges of climate change. Read below to learn more about some of the research projects we are currently involved with.
Making impact today
IDRIC, the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre
Enabling a greener future for the UK’s industrial clusters
Industrial clusters across the UK are an essential part of the economy – but they also make a significant contribution to UK emissions. Decarbonising the largest clusters is an important step towards reaching the UK’s net zero emissions targets.
IDRIC is developing innovative, cost-effective and multidisciplinary decarbonisation solutions at pace and scale, by harnessing the power of collaboration. Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), its goal is to deliver long-lasting economic growth and societal benefits, and to build the foundations for the new industrial clusters of tomorrow.
Professor Benjamin Sovacool, the Director of the Bennett Institute, is also a Co-Director of IDRIC.
ACCESS: Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science
Leading on the social science contribution to climate and the environment
ACCESS is working to share our understanding of how people, societies and systems need to change and adapt to create a healthier environment and meet net zero goals.
Its four areas of work include: learning from the past experiences of social scientists to catalyse change; empowering environmental social scientists through training; innovating with new approaches that enable social scientists to play leading roles in addressing environmental challenges; and coordinating environmental social scientists’ knowledge sharing across the UK and worldwide. It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Professor Benjamin Sovacool, the Director of the Bennett Institute, is also Co-Director of Innovation and Research Impact for ACCESS
Fact-checking: epistemologies, public perceptions and automated futures
Examining how fact-checkers produce, justify and articulate their knowledge claims
Fact-checking, as a distinct journalistic form, has risen to prominence in the 21st century as a response to concerns about a lack of respect for the truth in political debate and the rapid spread of misinformation across social media platforms. This project uses expertise and insights from the social sciences and philosophy to examine fact-checking epistemologies.
In the context of political polarisation, challenges to the authority of expertise, concerns about dishonesty in political debate, and the spread of misinformation online, the epistemologies of fact-checkers and how they are perceived by public audiences are topics of great importance. This research will generate novel and impactful knowledge about how fact-checkers produce and justify fact-checks, how automation could change this, and how UK and US public audiences and key stakeholders view different epistemic approaches to fact-checking.
Dr Laurence Williams, Associate Research Fellow at the Bennett Institute, is the Principal Investigator of this project, which is funded by The British Academy.
