Social Sciences & Humanities for Climate, Energy aNd Transport Research Excellence (SSH CENTRE)

Project funded by the Europen Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme
Grant Agreement n. 101069529
Duration: 42 months
Start date: 01/09/2022
The project official website

The transition to a more environmentally sustainable social and economic system is a complex process requiring approaches that engage with a plurality of stakeholders, in order to allow the concrete experience of non-academic actors to contribute fully to the identification of the problems to be addressed and the definition of solutions. Therefore, to face transition is vital to create the conditions that SSH (Social Sciences and Humanities) and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines work together (multidisciplinarity) but also feed deep and meaningful dialogue across society, integrating ‘extra-scientific’ insights from the onset of projects, to jointly shape research questions and project direction (transdisciplinarity).

The Social Sciences & Humanities for Climate, Energy aNd Transport Research Excellence (SSH CENTRE) project is aimed at addressing these issues, encouraging the involvement of SSH communities in Europe in the environmental transition, promoting joint work with STEMs, the involvement of stakeholders, and the implementation of research, innovation, and public policy-making activities. To this end, SSH Centre involves 13 leading organisations from across the EU with expertise across SSH and STEM disciplines applied to climate, energy, and mobility, and with experience in transdisciplinarity and citizen engagement. The project involves networks that span academia, policymakers at various levels, the private sector, civil society, and citizens. The project includes a wide range of activities, such as the development of novel SSH-STEM collaborations to facilitate the delivery of the EU Green Deal; the organisation of knowledge brokerage initiatives involving SSH early career researchers to support 6 European cities in managing the sustainability transition; the design of strategies for citizen engagement in the EC research and innovation policies affecting climate, energy, and transport. 

Multiple outputs are expected from the project, including literacy briefs, a book (two volumes), policy recommendations, self-paced online training modules, scientific and policy events, a toolbox on public engagement methods, a webinar, and an open knowledge platform.

News

On January 26, 2023, the Policy Insight event “Co-creating the shift to clean mobility” was held in Brussels hosted by Friends of Europe. The event marked the official launch of the SSH CENTRE Project. Three speakers participated in the event: Cathy Macharis (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Julia Poliscanova (Transport & Environment), and Rosalinde van der Vlies (European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation) ...
Hosted by the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), the first Consortium Meeting of the SSH CENTER project was held in Brussels on 25 and 26 January 2023. During the meeting, the WP leaders presented an update of the activities carried out in the framework of their work package and a plan of actions envisaged for the coming months. Luciano d'Andrea and Fabio Feudo (K&I) chaired the session dedicated to WP3, led by K&I, aimed at implementing knowledge brokerage initiatives involving young social researchers to support the administrations of six European cities (city hubs) to develop policy initiatives in the area ...
The Kick-Off Meeting of the SSH CENTRE project was held on 7 and 8 September 2022 in Cambridge (UK) hosted by the Anglia Ruskin University. On the first day, after a general presentation of the project, the attention was mainly focused on project management and coordination (WP7), the dissemination, communication, and exploitation of the project results (WP6), the scoping activities (WP1), and the process of evaluation and synthesis of the project results (WP5). On the second day, three workshops have been organised to discuss the cooperation activities between SSH and STEM disciplines (WP2), the knowledge brokerage of SSH knowledge to policymaking ...