Joint ESRI/TCD Seminar: "Fostering social acceptance of energy transitions: the prospects and limitations of community fund provision"

Speaker: Professor Patrick Devine-Wright, University of Exeter

Venue: Haughton Lecture Theatre, Museum Building, Trinity College Dublin

Seminar Topic:

Despite increasing societal awareness of climate change and public support for renewable energy, there have been widespread difficulties in the deployment of energy projects when communities have objected to local siting proposals. The provision of community benefit funds by developers has become increasingly normative, encouraged and sometimes mandated by policymakers. The speaker will discuss the prospects and limitations of benefit provision as a means of securing social acceptance of infrastructure siting proposals, as well as the low carbon transition more generally, drawing on academic case studies conducted in the UK and Ireland of renewable energy and grid powerline projects.

Speaker Bio:

Patrick Devine-Wright is an environmental social scientist who draws from disciplines such as Human Geography and Environmental Psychology. He specialises in researching significant, policy-relevant environmental problems using an interdisciplinary collaborative approach that is theoretically informed and has clear pathways to impact. Prof. Devine-Wright held posts at the University of Manchester‘s School of Environment and Development (Senior Lecturer, then Reader) and DeMontfort University‘s Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development (Research Fellow, then Senior Research Fellow) before joining the University of Exeter to take up a Chair in Human Geography in 2009.