2 minutes read

This project is an Institutional Contractual Agreement between United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and FEEM for conducting research on the topic “Fuelling clean energy transitions: The political economy of energy innovation”.

The World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) and the Joint lnstitute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are collaborating to assemble an edited volume focused on the political economy of clean energy. Sustainable energy transitions involve the shift of resources between competing Industrial sectors and political constituencies. Stakeholders in this process have varying degrees of political and economie power, and understanding how political economie factors influence clean energy transitions is crucial to effective policy formulation and facilitating transitions to sustainable energy systerns. This initiative seeks to contribute to enhanced understanding of these factors.

For this purpose, the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and FEEM signed an Institutional Contractual Agreement for conducting research on the topic “Fuelling clean energy transitions: The political economy of energy innovation”. The specific objectives of this request for research proposals are:

1) To advance the understanding of how political economy factors can both inhibit and accelerate clean energy innovation.

2) To compare and contrast how political economy factors influence clean energy innovation across a wide range of national settings (developed economies, emerging economies, and least-developed countries).

The proposed research will collect, harmonize, and describe data on energy innovation and provide novel insights on the role of political economy factors in shaping the clean energy transition. The research will characterize energy innovation dynamics across a wide range of national and institutional settings, and highlight its specificities by comparing them to those of other sectors and technological areas. It will then analyze the effect of political economy factors on the magnitude and direction of energy investments and innovation.

The PECE project research output is expected to the published as a WIDER Working Paper.