Interdisciplinary PhD school discussed sustainable energy transitions
Frauke Urban (INDEK) and Saman Nimali Gunasekara (EGI) organised a PhD Winter School on “Sustainable Energy Transitions – Technology and Management Perspectives” on 13 – 15 March 2023 at KTH.
The PhD Winter School was funded by the Scandinavian Academy of Industrial Engineering and Management (ScAIEM) and was an interdisciplinary course developed as part of the Research Initiative on Sustainable Industry and Society (IRIS). The PhD Winter School was a collaboration between KTH, the Technical University of Denmark DTU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU and Linköping University LiU.
The course was attended by about 20 students from 5 different continents, including energy engineers as well as social science energy researchers, giving it a truly international and interdisciplinary character.
The course content covered sustainable energy transitions related to renewable energy and energy storage, integrated energy and climate assessment modelling, sustainable business models and entrepreneurship for energy transitions, circular economy and lifecycle analysis (LCA) for energy transitions, sociotechnical transitions and innovation management for sustainable energy transitions as well as energy and climate policy.
The course dealt with the challenges and opportunities that drive transformations of energy systems and energy-related industries. This included discussing the relevance of global challenges like climate change and sustainable development and analyzing how they contribute to transformations of energy systems and industries from a holistic systems’ perspective, as well as discussing solutions of technical, socio-economic and policy-related nature. The course also included a lab tour and a career advice session