The Department of Geography at Loughborough University has been a major player within the promotion of trans-disciplinary collaboration at Loughborough where it has developed close links with a range of different academic departments working on energy and sustainability issues and is also an active participant within the innovative multi-disciplinary approach towards energy research which has been a feature of the Midlands Energy Consortium and Midlands Energy Graduate School (which Loughborough is involved in with the Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham).
Over the last few years we have began building up a small team of researchers working on energy issues, a major feature of our growing work in this area has been a desire to develop innovative ways of working across disciplinary boundaries to develop new approaches to understanding energy transitions within different social, cultural and political contexts.
This is reflected in our key role within the development of the UK Low Carbon Energy for Development Network.
Our Work Team
Ed Brown
Ed is a Senior Lecturer in the Geography Department at Loughborough University and much of his recent activity has been focused on issues surrounding the uptake of low carbon energy technologies within the Global South. He is the National Co-Chair of the UK Low Carbon Energy for Development Network, devoted to building bridges between the divergent branches of academia working on low-carbon transitional issues (reflecting a broader interest pursued over recent years as Associate Director of Loughborough University’s Sustainability Research School). Ed is currently PI on the READ and two other related EPSRC projects that come under the umbrella of the RCUK’s USES (Understanding Sustainable Energy Solutions) projects. One involves networking the projects funded under the RCUK programme, whilst besides READ the other project involves exploring the potential of solar nano-grids in the contexts of Kenya and Bangladesh.
Jon Cloke
Jon currently works as Network Manager for the UK Low Carbon Energy for Development Network, which he’s been doing since the Network was set up in 2011. The LCEDN was set up as a DECC-funded network hosted by Loughborough University and the Durham Energy Institute to linkthe research expertise in the UK on energy and development and to improve research co-ordination and funding efficiency. Jon also works with Ed Brown in mapping the UK low carbon for development research landscape and in coordinating the projects funded under the Understanding Sustainable Energy Solutions (USES) research programme. Jon is a research associate for the READ project and a Solar Nano-grids project based in Bangladesh and Kenya; he has been a lecturer in human geography in the Geography Department at Loughborough from 2007 to date in a wide range of modules from Level 1 to Post-graduate. Jon has also worked as an NGO Consultant to different non-government organizations including most recently the UK-based NGO Practical Action (formerly the Intermediate Technology Development Group at the Schumacher Centre) developing policy documents for guiding strategy.
John Harrison
Dr John Harrison is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Loughborough University, an Associate Director of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network, and a co-editor of the journal Regional Studies. He is a regional geographer whose interests in decentralised forms of urban and regional governance has seen him explore the mechanisms through which power is devolved/decentralised. More specifically his work explores the role of actors in blocking or enabling political decentralisation and examines who stands to gain/lose from the decentralised systems constructed.
John specialises in issues around the politics of devolution, decentralisation, and subnational governance. He has published extensively on these topics, and brings knowledge of the most recent conceptual and theoretical advances in debates surrounding the politics of decentralisation, as well as practical experience of this from both a European and energy governance perspective, to this project. His involvement on the project is mainly focused on WP1 and the review of other country experience with decentralised energy governance.
