WISER
Women & Inclusivity in Sustainable Energy Research (WISER) is a global network of women and non-binary academics in the field of clean, low–carbon, or sustainable energy research. We are committed to the inclusiveness that goes beyond gender lines and incorporates diversity in class, race, sexuality, and ability.
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WISER Message from Chair
Dear WISER members,
In 2022, WISER sought to expand the reach and scope of our network in a significant way. We are so very grateful to the people within and beyond our network who have supported this mission. The past year also continued to highlight the importance of energy transition research that centres justice and equity in its mandate. Global conflict, economic inequality and inflation, political polarization and climate crisis have put immense pressures on our collective future. While these phenomena pose challenges, both the gender inclusive researchers and research agendas in the WISER network provide vital perspectives and approaches to addressing the tensions laying at the heart of these problems. I strongly believe the work of WISER members helps societies change norms, processes, and institutions that are hard to budge. This deeply personal and political work challenges long-held assumptions of what the future can look like. In times of struggle and in professional environments - including the academy - that can put immense pressure on individuals, I hope WISER served and will continue to serve as a space for support, connection, collaboration and motivation as we undertake this important work.
The year in WISER comings and goings
This year, WISER hosted numerous events to connect members, provide training to support our members professionally and catalyze knowledge mobilization on the importance of gender, inclusion, equity and justice in sustainable energy transition scholarship and practice. We held our first ever Asia-Oceania time-zone coffee date, and hosted media training led by Shari Graydon of Informed Opinions and productivity coaching led by Kel Weinhold.
Our key focus of the year was a three-part online and open symposia series held in partnership with the Smart Prosperity Institute and Women in Renewable Energy (WiRE) Canada. Each symposia held three individual panels, for a total of nine rich discussions over the year. Our first symposia, held in May addressed Indigenous energy sovereignty, gender diverse leadership in energy transitions, and widening the benefits of energy transitions across communities and geographies. Our second symposia, held in September, highlighted new developments in energy modelling and data, urban energy transitions and energy poverty. Our third and final symposia, held in November, spoke to policy change in sustainable energy transitions, energy democracy and participation and inclusivity and justice dimensions of energy policies.
These symposia connected scholars and practitioners on a wide array of topics, and while we hope you enjoyed the discussions, we also have a number of written outputs summarizing and analyzing their content (with more to come!). Sarah-Anne Thompson wrote a piece for the Smart Prosperity Institute blog, "What we can talk about when we don't talk about profit," and Eden Luymes wrote "The Emancipatory Potential of Decentralizing Power" for the Environmental Politics blog. Following the final symposium and in the wake of COP 27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Amy Janzwood, Colleen Kaiser and I wrote a reflective Op Ed for Policy Options, "Four steps to jump-start Canadian climate policy." Stay tuned for more outputs on these events!
Our network
Our membership now sits at 198 members across 27 countries. We also continue to take stock of the career stage diversity of our membership. Our membership is still largely comprised of early career scholars: 37% are Ph.D. students and 28% are postdoctoral researchers. Additionally, 31% of our network are faculty members and 4% are non-academic professionals.
See a chart of our membership according to country of work here:
What's next?
In 2023, we will continue to deepen our connections as a network, work to provide platforms for our membership to share their research, target underrepresented groups and geographies in dominant academic scholarly venues and fundraise to support our activities. We also look forward to supporting a book project led by WISER members on just and inclusive energy transitions in the Canadian context.
I will be stepping down from my Chair and Steering Committee roles at the end of February 2022 . I am thrilled that Dr. Runa Das is taking over the role of Chair for 2023. We are also excited to welcoming Tamara Knittel (University of Victoria) to the Steering Committee!
Best wishes to all,
Sarah Sharma
WISER Chair, 2022
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2023 Steering Committee
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Runa Das (chair)
Royal Roads University
Canada
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Amy Janzwood
University of British Columbia
Canada
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Neelakshi Joshi
Leibniz Institute for Ecological Urban &
Regional Development, Germany
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Tamara Knittel
University of Victoria
Canada
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Georgia Savvidou
Chalmers University of Technology
Sweden
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Laura Tozer
University of Toronto
Canada
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Join us for a virtual coffee!
We regularly host virtual coffee dates for WISER members to build relationships and get to know each other. For more information about the next coffee date, stay tuned for details via member email.
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Updates from our Members!
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Amelia Clarke
The Municipal Net-Zero Action Research Partnership (N-ZAP), under the leadership of Dr. Amelia Clarke, has secured ~$8.5 million CAD in funding, including $4 million from the Government of Canada. N-ZAP is co-led by the University of Waterloo, ICLEI Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and involves experts from 11 other Canadian universities (including other WISER members), eight other national organizations and 13+ municipal governments.>
N-ZAP aims to support Canadian municipalities in monitoring, measuring and achieving their GHG mitigation goals. This research project will study and create improved measurement, analysis and monitoring systems for both municipal and community-wide GHG emissions. It will help to advance the quantification of GHG emissions, enable the application of methods to identify mitigation opportunities, and evaluate their effectiveness.
More information can be found on the N-ZAP website - https://uwaterloo.ca/nzap
Amy Janzwood
Amy is newly an assistant professor at McGill University, cross-appointed in the Bieler School of the Environment and the Department of Political Science
Angela Maria Rojas A.
I am thrilled to announce I successfully completed my PhD titled “Sustainability Transitions Modelling and Assessment of Socio-technical Energy Systems: An Australian Case”. The thesis includes conceptual, methodological and empirical contributions go beyond low-carbon transition narratives to include energy justice concepts. The thesis contributions demonstrated the value of bridging systems modelling and analysis approaches to inform real-life decision-making. The conceptualisation of socio-technical energy systems, historical narrative, model development, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis and scenario analysis of this thesis improve our knowledge of Victoria's electricity system’s evolution and path dependencies. Even though the contributions focus on Victoria, the methodology can be generally applied to other contexts and infrastructure-bounded services such as water, waste, and food. The thesis also paves the way for new research into adaptive policymaking.
Feel free to check the thesis at http://hdl.handle.net/11343/324500
I am also honoured to announce I will be joining the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) of the Australian Government. I’ll be located at Melbourne, Australian and I hope to collaborate with many WISER members during my time as research fellow at CSIRO’s energy business unit. Feel free to contact me if you consider we have common interests and would like to collaborate in the near future!
Bregje van Veelen
As of 1 October, 2022, I'm employed as an Assistant Professor (Biträdande lektor) at Lund University, Sweden.
Christina Hoicka
Awarded the Canada Research Chair in Urban Planning for Climate Change (2021-2026), announced January 2021.
Evangeline Kroon
I have been invited to present my paper "Liminal Parallels: A Case Study of Graduate Student Pedagogies in the Digital Age" at Congress 2023 for the Canadian Political Science Association conference. The paper explores the dual liminality of the graduate student experience and the digital age and how graduate student community, in this case an online writing group, uniquely prepared graduate students for teaching 21st century literacies to political science undergraduates.
I have also been invited to present a talk on my thesis at the Robarts Centre for Canadian studies on March 7th, 2023 for their Climate Research Month series. Link for the event: A Climate for Change? A History of Political Response to Climate Change
Georgia Savvidou
In the European Union, there is a gap in Research & Innovation (R&I) performance between countries. 'Teaming for Excellence' is a leading action of Horizon Europe with the objective to bridge this gap by building up R&I capacities in countries with reduced R&I performance to enable them to advance to the competitive edge at European and international levels.
We are thrilled to have been selected as one of the proposals to receive a grant from Horizon Europe program's 'Teaming for Excellence'.
Our "PHAETHON" proposal, coordinated by the University of Cyprus and with partners DTU - Technical University of Denmark, University of Groningen, and Cyprus Seeds secured funding of €50 million funded by the European Union (15m), Republic Of Cyprus (15m), EuroAsia Interconnector (10m + 5m sponsorship for premises) and the UCY (5m), for the creation of a world class Center of Excellence in the field of smart, efficient and sustainable energy solutions.
We are pleased to know that our proposal secured the highest score in the evaluation with 14.5/15, together with one other proposal, among the 110 submitted at a pan-European level. With a vision of a truly inclusive and innovative center, the potential for about 220 new job positions, and a commitment to sustainability we're ready to work hard for real change!
Kathleen Hancock
I will be presenting two papers at the International Studies Association in Montreal, March 15th: “Energy Equity in the Global North” which is part of a panel I organized, and “Big Business on Big Issues: Energy Companies and Climate Change.” Would love to connect with other WISER members at the ISA.
Neelakshi Joshi
Runa Das
Das was awarded close to $300,000 SSHRC Insight Grant along with co-investigators Mylène Riva and Mari Martiskainen to study energy poverty, with the aim to answer the question, “How can energy poverty be defined, measured, and addressed in the Canadian context?” The researchers are looking to widen the scope of collaborators to include end users of energy, stakeholders, decision makers and even representatives of power utilities. Additionally, the research aims to identify what drives and exacerbates energy poverty; determine who is energy vulnerable; and get a deeper understanding of the impacts of energy poverty on their well-being and everyday life. It will also assess how equitable government interventions and policies are and propose new ways to measure energy poverty in Canada.
Sarah Sharma
Sarah started her role as an assistant professor of International Political Economy at the University of Victoria. In the Department of Political Science.
Tahereh Miremadi
Organizing a think thank to study the role of women active in S&T and sustainability transition in Iran.
The think thank will work as an NGO and consists of 6 women eduacated and work as managers and professors in the field of technology management and policy making. They all have a strong resume in energy and resilience and sustainability areas of study.
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Upcoming Events
14th Annual International Sustainability Transitions Conference
August 30th – September 1st, 2023
Hosted by the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht, The Netherlands
IST Call for Papers
2023 Earth System Governance Conference
October 24-26, 2023
Hosted by Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
ESG Call for Papers
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Read the following blogs and outputs from our 2022 Symposium Series jointly hosted by WISER, Smart Prosperity Institute, and WIRE over the past 8 months!
Click on the image to open a link to the op-ed or blog post in a new window.
 
 
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Anaïs Varo
Varo, A., Jiglau, G., Grossmann, K. et al. (2022). Addressing energy poverty through technological and governance innovation. Energy, Sustainability, Society, vol. 12, no. 49: online. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-022-00377-x
Jennie C. Stephens
Boyle, A. D., & Stephens, J. C. (2022). Higher Education Needs a New Mission: How about Climate Justice? Boston Globe. (September 1). https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/01/opinion/higher-education-needs-new-mission-how-about-climate-justice/
Stephens, J. C. (2022). Feminist, Antiracist Values for Climate Justice: Moving Beyond Climate Isolationism. In J. Agyeman, T. Chung-Tiam-Fook, & J. Engle (Eds.), Sacred Civics: Building Seven Generation Cities. Routledge: 177-189. PDF download: https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/54244/1/9781000601350.pdf#page=198
Stephens, J. C. 2022. Beyond Climate Isolationism: A Necessary Shift for Climate Justice. Current Climate Change Reports, vol 8, no. 3: 83-90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-022-00186-6
Stephens, J. C, Kashwan, P, McLaren, D, & Surprise, K. (2022). Toward Dangerous US Unilateralism on Solar Geoengineering. Environmental Politics, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2022.2156182
Stephens, J. C., Kashwan, P., McLaren, D., & Surprise, K. (2021). The Dangers of Mainstreaming Solar Geoengineering: A critique of the National Academies Report. Environmental Politics, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2021.1989214
Julie L. MacArthur
Julie L. MacArthur & Runa Das
Das, R., Martiskainen, M., Bertrand, L., & MacArthur, J. L. (2022). A review and analysis of responses to energy poverty and vulnerability in Ontario, Canada, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol 165: 112617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2022.112617
Julie L. MacArthur, Christina Hoicka, & Runa Das
Neelakshi Joshi
Joshi, N., Agrawal, S., & Welegedara, N.P.Y. (2022). Something old, something new, something green: Community Leagues and neighbourhood energy transitions in Edmonton, Canada. Energy Research and Social Sciences, vol. 88: 102524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102524
Runa Das
Das, R. R. & Martiskainen, M. (October 2022). Keeping the Lights On: Ensuring energy affordability, equity, and access in the transition to clean electricity in Canada. Prepared for the David Suzuki Foundation. ISBN 978-1-988424-88-0.
The authors were commissioned to write a report focusing on energy poverty in the context of a people-centred transition in Canada. Call have been made for energy transitions to be equitable so that they do not cause unnecessary burden.
Das, R. R., Martiskainen, M., Bertrand, L. M., & MacArthur, J. L. (2022). A review and analysis of initiatives addressing energy poverty and vulnerability in Ontario, Canada. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 165: 112617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2022.112617
Das, R. R., Martiskainen, M., & Li, G. (2022). Quantifying the prevalence of energy poverty across Canada: Estimating domestic energy burden using an expenditures approach. The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien, vol. 66, no. 3: 416-433. https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12750
Das, R. R., & Richman, R. (2022). The development and application of a public energy literacy instrument. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, vol. 22, no. 1: 42-67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42330-022-00196-4
Sarah Sharma
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