Integrating social science in energy research (2)

Energy Research & Social Science (2015) 95–99 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy Research & Social Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/erss Short communication Integrating social science in energy research B.K Sovacool a,∗ , S.E Ryan b , P.C Stern c , K Janda d , G Rochlin e , D Spreng f , M.J Pasqualetti g , H Wilhite h , L Lutzenhiser i a Aarhus University, School of Business and Social Sciences, Denmark Yale University, School of Law, United States c U.S National Research Council, Board on Environmental Change and Society, United States d Oxford University, Environmental Change Institute, United Kingdom e University of California Berkeley, Energy Resources Group, United States f Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Centre for Energy Policy and Economics, Switzerland g Arizona State University, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, United States h University of Oslo, Centre for Development and the Environment, Norway i Portland State University, Institute for Sustainable Solutions, United States b a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received December 2014 Received in revised form 15 December 2014 Accepted 15 December 2014 a b s t r a c t This article reflects on the state of the energy studies field, and it proposes recommendations for better integrating social science into energy research Realizing a future energy system that is low-carbon, safe, and reliable will require fuller and more meaningful collaboration between the physical and social sciences © 2014 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved Keywords: Energy studies Interdisciplinarity Transdisciplinary research Introduction With the one year anniversary of this journal imminent, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the state of the energy studies field, and to propose some suggestions for integrating social science into energy research For it is all too common for energy researchers to generally undervalue social science discoveries, ignore possible interdisciplinary awareness, and marginalize diverse perspectives [1,2] In this article, we argue that securing our energy future will require that this pattern changes We must alter infrastructure and technology and support social change if we are to achieve a future energy system that enhances human well-being and is sustainable and just [3] Such an energy future can be realized only by integrating insights from the physical and social sciences [4,5] Energy advocates, the climate change community, and related ∗ Corresponding author Tel.: +45 3032 4303 E-mail addresses: BenjaminSo@auhe.au.dk (B.K Sovacool), sarah.ryan@yale.edu (S.E Ryan), PStern@nas.edu (P.C Stern), katy.janda@ouce.ox.ac.uk (K Janda), grochlin@berkeley.edu (G Rochlin), dspreng@ethz.ch (D Spreng), pasqualetti@asu.edu (M.J Pasqualetti), h.l.wilhite@sum.uio.no (H Wilhite), llutz@pdx.edu (L Lutzenhiser) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2014.12.005 2214-6296/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved policymakers need to recognize that energy production, consumption, and policy are both social and technical domains [6–8] Belatedly, even the U.S Department of Energy (DOE) acknowledges that energy demand is significantly shaped by individual, community, and organizational choice alongside technical performance [9] The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology suggests that we need “a multidisciplinary social science research program that will provide critical information and support for policy development that advances diffusion of innovative energy technologies” [10] Energy programs that integrate social science can enable us to comprehend better the sources and dynamics of energy problems and develop feasible and acceptable solutions to them Nonetheless, a series of biases continue to handicap energy studies [11] Researchers often promote technological solutions to energy problems while ignoring the social processes that determine their acceptance and use, shape the risks they can present, and offer opportunities for achieving energy policy goals with existing technology [12] The reliability of energy models is often low because they are overly sensitive to cost assumptions and ignore other major drivers of energy policy and behavior such as social equity, politics, and unforeseen technological advances [13–15] Further, national and local energy institutions in many countries 96 B.K Sovacool et al / Energy Research & Social Science (2015) 95–99 Fig Four types of energy and climate research lack significant social science expertise outside economics, and although they may assert that they understand what social science offers, they often act as if expertise in other fields is superior to, or obviates the need for social science [16] Lastly, while some energy research has both usefulness and enhances fundamental understanding, being located in what has been called “Pasteur’s quadrant,” [17] much of it does not (Fig 1) Recapping three shortcomings of energy research As the inaugural volume published one year ago in this journal noted, these shortcomings are clearly evident in the energy research literature [1] To recap, a review of thousands of articles in leading energy journals—Energy Policy, Electricity Journal, and The Energy Journal—over a 15 year period confirmed three negative patterns The first is that social dimensions are under-examined The human elements of energy systems and their consequences are frequently neglected Instead, most articles investigate “state-ofthe-art” innovations such as small modular reactors, hydrogen fuel cells, or offshore wind turbines That is, more attention is paid to the hardware than to the human software behind it Among the social phenomena that go under-researched are the factors underlying demand for energy services and the acquisition and use of technology; perceptions and judgments about energy risks; energy attitudes; persuasion and communication about energy choices; energy decision-making processes in individuals, organizations, and communities; and energy ethics The second pattern is a disciplinary chauvinism which treats most social science as secondary and peripheral As Fig illustrates, physical science, engineering, economics (a special case that cuts across technical and social science), and statistics accounted for the disciplinary training of 67 percent of authors within the sample; by contrast, the rest of the social sciences, arts, and humanities as a whole accounted for less than 20 percent, with almost all of those affiliations in law, business, and public policy Sociology, geography, history, psychology, communication, and philosophy, among others, constituted less than 0.7 percent, together, of disciplinary training References to non-economic social sciences and humanities journals, containing articles on topics such as consumer behavior and social impediments to policies, comprised less than 4.3 percent of the more than 90,000 citations across the sample This technical focus of the literature blunts our ability to understand the energy consumer’s side of energy issues [18] Moreover, it can create blind spots about the distribution of potential risks and rewards, and lessen our ability to determine the effectiveness of various policies, programs, and technological innovations [19] Another result is a preponderance of quantitative perspectives, mapping a general tendency to propose technical solutions to social problems The third pattern is one of homogenous perspectives Fig indicates that published researchers are overwhelmingly male and tend to hale from Western, affluent institutions and countries This imbalance is reflected in a preponderance of studies of problems facing the industrialized world and relative neglect of such problems as energy poverty, inequitable access to energy services [20], and the gendered aspects of energy use such as the health impacts arising from the indoor air pollution associated with biomass cookstoves [21] Revealing the value of social science These three trends are unfortunate, to say the least, given that social scientists can help solve one of the perennial challenges of applied energy research: the disconnect between technological solutions and consumer adoption of new technologies For decades, studies of consumer choice have demonstrated barriers to adoption of more efficient, cost-saving household appliances, for instance In 1983, Meier and Whittier reported that more than half of refrigerator purchasers, in a large national sample, refused to pay $60 more for a model that would reduce their energy usage by greater than 25% annually; instead, most bought a model identical in all respects except its energy usage [22] The simple mathematics required to calculate the long-term cost savings of the $60 investment is not only within the capacity of the average consumer, it is a baseline assumption of most rational choice models Further, while $60 was not a trifling amount three decades ago, it likely added less than 10 percent to the cost of the refrigerator and fell short of cost prohibitive for all but a few of the purchasers This scenario begs two questions: What non-economic barriers thwarted early adoption of economically and environmentally efficient technologies? Furthermore, what interventions could help to remove those barriers? Since then, a raft of social science studies has explained why consumers rationally decline to adopt a diverse array of more efficient technologies These reasons range from a lack of terminological clarity (i.e., the “bargain” was not clear because the B.K Sovacool et al / Energy Research & Social Science (2015) 95–99 97 Fig Disciplinary, gender, methodological, and geographic trends in energy studies research, 1999–2013 new technology was not explained well) to a distrust of corporate or government claims (i.e., efficiency claims seemed self-serving and unsupported by science) to default purchasing habits What ultimately compelled most refrigerator buyers to pay more for energy efficient appliances, as a recent study illustrates, were sociobehavioral innovations such as Energy Star labeling [23] Low-tech, high-context interventions such as efficiency labels leverage the research of anthropologists, communication scientists, and psychologists The elegance of the Energy Star label belies the complex socio-behavioral work of studying consumer decision making, and developing persuasive technologies capable of uniting individualistic cost considerations and communal moral frames Additionally, a line of thinking known as the “Jevons Paradox” argues that some energy efficiency efforts yields savings which liberates resources for people to employ elsewhere, often in activities that consume more net energy [24] Energy efficiency has a potential “rebound effect,” one ostensibly that specialists in the behavioral sciences, rather the physical or technical sciences, are well primed to address This work on behavior is worth a great deal to applied energy researchers Simplistically, one could equate the value of social science to the aggregate value of energy and household cost savings garnered via Energy Star labels and similar behavioristic innovations More broadly, the potential contribution of the social sciences is arguably equal to the impact of rebound effects or the value of most new energy technologies, particularly those that are counterintuitive or difficult-to-understand That is, without social scientific partners to translate the relative advantage of such innovations for individual and organizational decision-makers, their value is evident only to a narrow community of scientists and innovators Further, without pre-design social science input, applied energy researchers can only guess at the human behaviors that drive current decision-making and will inform selection, adoption, and continued use of new technologies Such guesswork detracts from efficient and effective research and design The way forward The question is whether and how energy research can draw from the depths of different disciplines and learn more from the ones that have been undervalued to date Integrating social science in energy research will require that we pursue three recommendations synergistically 4.1 Collect social science data To begin to mitigate disciplinary bias, energy ministries and statistical agencies should compile and analyze data on social phenomena related to energy issues This is not entirely a new idea; in the late 1970s and early 1980s many energy agencies “discovered” the value of social science, but the discovery seems to have been forgotten [25,26] The American Academy of Arts & Sciences recently recommended that the U.S Energy Information Administration, a unit of the DOE, “collect and organize [behavioral] data useful for social science” and create a “social science advisory group” [27] They also suggested that local utility commissioners and energy planners require energy companies to utilize social science research when developing new technologies, and that program evaluations begin to include determinations of behavioral and regulatory barriers alongside traditional economic and technical ones Indeed, legislation submitted to the U.S Congress would have created a formal sub-division of the DOE on the behavioral aspects of energy, but the idea has not progressed very far [28] On the other side of the Atlantic, the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the United Kingdom has a “Customer Insight Team” that explores capacity building for altering the behavior of consumers and organizations, but it is an exception rather than the norm 4.2 Orient energy research around problems To encourage interdisciplinary depth, more of energy research should be problem-centered, not just technology-centered One way to foster interdisciplinary energy-oriented scholarship is through problem-focused programs in funding and education Though it has its faults, the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E) in the United States organizes its programs around energy problems and “disruptive technologies” [29] In universities, this could entail special interdisciplinary programs on energy or climate change, somewhat analogous to the problem-focused programs that universities have long maintained 98 B.K Sovacool et al / Energy Research & Social Science (2015) 95–99 in agricultural research, medicine, and business Instructive examples include the Energy and Resources Group at University of California—Berkeley, the Business Based Technology Development program at Aarhus University, the Natural and Social Science Interface at ETH Zurich, and the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex Well-conceived initiatives would emphasize social science approaches at undergraduate and graduate levels, and in the curriculum, focused on such major energy problems as efficient and sustainable consumption, risk management, public decision making, and the design of technologies for public acceptance and use All these foci require social science integrated with other sciences [30] Such transdisciplinary projects not always mesh with academic credentialing and reward systems, though Nearly all universities seem to want to encourage interdisciplinary work but then organize and re-enforce disciplinary structures within the university A primary cause of disciplinary intractability in universities is systems of promotion and tenure that rely heavily on validation provided by publication in disciplinary journals (monitored by journal editors as disciplinary gatekeepers) and reviews by referees from disciplinary departments Universities can overcome disciplinary hegemony by crediting collaboration across silos and rewarding cross-disciplinary work, particularly on problems like climate change, which not respect disciplines In stressing that social science is essential in pointing the way to energy systems which respond to human and societal needs, we not pretend that the task is easy If decision makers want advice from natural science they usually get the same answer from any competent natural scientist However, if they seek advice on economic, societal, political or psychological questions they have to be watchful which expert they consult Mainstream economists and ecological economists, for example, can give different, often opposite advice In the past, policymakers regularly chose the advice of classical economics over other disciplines, placing too much faith in “rational actor” theories of behavior, to the detriment of other disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, or history [5] And while all economists may claim to be social scientists today, not all social scientists would agree to that general claim There is a difference between trying to find the economic value of environmental services and valuing the environment for other reasons In order for policymakers not to be hopelessly overtaxed by such disagreement, every piece of advice from social science may have to include a self-declaration on how it fits into a colorful and at times disjointed body of knowledge Social science disciplines tend to have different emphases and to get the best understanding one needs interdisciplinarity Nor are technical scientists and engineers the only ones that need to reach out Social science research completely divorced from sound physical science, engineering, or life science can be just as incomplete and ineffective as physics or chemistry work divorced from its sociological or economic implications Energy problems require that social scientists engage with the physical sciences as well as the reverse 4.3 Encourage diverse perspectives To encourage a breadth of perspectives, energy research must encompass diverse types of researchers and viewpoints, including those from beyond the academy, and beyond the United States and Europe Such inclusivity can enhance the robustness of research by incorporating academic knowledge about social structures, systems of cultural meaning, and processes of change, as well as observations by people closest to the phenomena in question, even if their observational methods not follow rigorous scientific protocols [31] As one example, attempts to address the problem of acid deposition (“acid rain”) did not really progress until scientists (notably biologists, physicists, chemists, and engineers) began to collaborate with economists, legal scholars, political scientists, sociologists, and citizens’ groups [32,33] Another example, from outside energy studies, comes from health, and the movement toward Evidence Based Practice, or EBP EBP harnesses social science inquiry methods and discoveries across the social sciences (organizational design, instrument validation, interpersonal communication) to improve health outcomes [34] The movement has influenced many aspects of the health sciences, from curriculum design and clinical practice to scholarship [35] Journal editors can motivate breadth on their own, too To date too much of energy related social science is published in less wellknown and less “prestigious” journals This needs to change, and some peer-reviewed journals, such as Energy Research & Social Science, have prioritized mixed methods, as well as qualitative and comparative research, in their aims and scope Conclusion In sum, the time has come to remake energy studies and research It should intentionally, systematically, and institutionally be more problem oriented, interdisciplinary, socially inclusive, and heterogeneous Narrow, disciplinary studies still have a place, of course, in energy research But if, as mathematician Norbert Weiner once observed, “change comes most of all from the unvisited noman’s land between the disciplines” [36], then we urgently need to explore the spaces that now exist between the social sciences and energy studies Acknowledgments Except as cited, this article does not necessarily represent the views of the U.S National Research Council The authors appreciate generous feedback from Professor Tom Dietz at Michigan State University which has been helpful in revising the arguments raised in this article We were initially reluctant to submit this piece to Energy Research & Social Science, hoping to reach a broader audience However, one environmental studies journal initially rejected it for not being novel enough and another three in the mainstream of the energy studies field refused to send it out for review on the grounds that it did not fit their aims and scope This is not atypical of the fate of articles grounded in, or arguing for, an interdisciplinary perspective on energy and environmental research We hope that publishing it here will ultimately promote the type of cross-disciplinary dialog that may eventually convince these types of journals, and their readers, of the value of integrative social science energy research References [1] Sovacool BK What are we doing here? 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