Green energy research stuck in disciplinary silos, report warns

Most research into clean-energy solutions that can help drive the transition to a low-carbon world is still very focused on a few disciplines and lacks input from areas outside the sciences, such as the humanities, according to a major report.

The study, which looks at data on clean-energy research stretching back 20 years, says some of the biggest areas in the field are at best average when it comes to combining themes and authors from varying disciplines.

The report from Elsevier assesses the extent to which publications on green-energy solutions were interdisciplinary (defined as research that references different disciplines) and multidisciplinary (involving researchers from different disciplines working together on a project).

It found that both barely differed from the average for research generally, something that is “arguably below expectations, given the push for cross-disciplinarity research to tackle the grand challenges presented by climate change and the achievement of net zero”.

“While cross-disciplinarity in research is often cited by research leaders and policymakers as an important approach to tackle grand challenges, our data indicate that there is room for improvement,” concludes the report, published on 28 October ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26).

Lesley Thompson, Elsevier’s vice-president for academic and government relations, told Times Higher Education that there was a “real preponderance" for a small number of disciplines to dominate clean-energy research, which could limit its “ability to address the societal issue of climate change and net zero”.

“We know that the adoption of technology and the deployment of technology isn’t just about having the widgets; it’s also about having the human-centred approach so the technology gets adopted,” she said.

“So the inclusion of social sciences and humanities in this research cluster would probably pay benefits to get us towards whatever targets are set by COP26 faster, and I guess that’s the concern.”

Dr Thompson added that there was some “heterogeneity” in the data, which suggested that there were examples of clean-energy topic areas that were managing to draw in lots of disciplines. But these tended to be smaller compared with major clean-energy research clusters related to particular technologies such as electric batteries or solar and wind power.

“There’s an opportunity for governments, funders and universities – when thinking about the composition of their energy research centres – to think about [whether] they have got a forward-looking mix of skills and abilities to really lead to deployment of net zero energy technologies,” added Dr Thompson.

Elsewhere, the report highlights that China has surged ahead of other countries on the volume of clean-energy research: it produced almost 400,000 publications between 2001 and 2020, compared with about 280,000 for the US, which China overtook on output in 2012.

China’s National Natural Science Foundation, meanwhile, accounted for almost a quarter of publications acknowledging a funding source between 2016 and 2020, while the amount of research funded by the US National Science Foundation or Department of Energy has “plateaued or declined”.

Dr Thompson pointed to other data in the report on links to industry and patent activity that showed how China was clearly linking research on clean energy to its economic progress.

“It is not just China doing the research papers; it is actually China thinking about how it translates that research discovery into innovation and out into deployment in the marketplace,” she said.

Data from the report suggest that India and South Korea are also concentrating heavily on clean-energy research relative to other fields, but India has lost ground in terms of collaborating internationally.

The analysis also draws attention to the fact that only a small proportion of such research is performed by, or in, the Global South. Altogether, countries in the Global South contributed to 15 per cent of clean-energy publications between 2001 and 2020, less than the US on its own.

Although more recent trends in this area “were encouraging”, the report emphasises the “need for great inclusion of the Global South” in clean-energy research.

“They are the countries that are much more likely to be impacted by climate change and potentially the least likely or able to mitigate those changes,” said Dr Thompson.

“I think that opens up a real challenge to the Global North to think about the partnerships they form…to ensure that the net zero solutions of research…encompass the whole world.”

simon.baker@timeshighereducation.com