6 Fridtjof Nansen Institute
6.2 Research group: European Climate and Energy Politics
FNI’s research group ‘European Climate and Energy Policy’ was started in the first half of the 1990s. It focuses on various aspects of European climate and energy policy, including the EU’s internal energy market, renewable energy, low carbon technologies and emissions trading. Policy development and implementation, both in Norway and the EU, play a major role in its orientation. In addition, it focuses on areas such as relations between the EU and major global climate policy actors, including China, Russia and the USA; relations between the EU and European Economic Area (EEA) countries, including
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the EU and other key actors in international climate policy (e.g. Russia, the US and China); 2) key EU and European Economic Area countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries; and analyses of energy industries (with a focus on power production and petroleum).
European climate and energy policies are core topics for the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI), which aims to be a leading national and international actor in research on international environmental, energy and resource management politics. The research group is embedded in the organisational structure of FNI, which is an independent foundation, and fully shares its strategic objectives.
Due to the institute’s (and group’s) dependence on external funding, in practice, the leadership of the research group alternates between its senior members (depending on project leadership). The group is somewhat ‘unified’, however, by the fact that FNI leads the working group on European climate and energy policies under the auspices of the Centre for Social Science-Related Energy Research – CICEP.
This centre, a collaborative project between international partners and the research group ‘European Climate and Energy Policy’, is supported by funding from the Research Council of Norway and, in a collaborative effort between institutions, studies international policy options and strategies that can effectively drive a transition from the current state to a low-carbon energy future. It also analyses the extent to which such steps can be sustainable, cost effective and politically feasible.
In substantive terms, the research group aims to better understand the causes, content and consequences of European and EU climate and energy policies. At the same time, it aims to contribute to theorising about patterns of international cooperation on EU policymaking and integration. The group’s publication strategy is to endeavour to publish in international peer-reviewed journals and to produce monographs and edited volumes on topics of interest.
The research group consists of relatively senior researchers, but also includes students in various projects, particularly those that are externally funded.
PhD students are incorporated into the institute’s activities, participating, for example, in seminars and institute meetings. Since FNI is not an educational institution, while PhD students may spend time abroad, this is arranged via their affiliation to Norwegian universities and not via FNI.
The average age of researchers in this research group is quite high (in the age range 50-59). The share of female researchers could be increased to achieve a better gender balance. Moreover, more effort could be made to provide career development opportunities, including those relating to mobility of researchers (across institutions in Norway, but also stays at universities or institutes abroad).
The research activities of the group mainly relate to externally funded research projects that are acquired in competitive processes. The research profile is characterised in particular by structured qualitative case study research on contemporary European and EU challenges, analysed from a multi-level governance perspective and drawing on theoretical and policy insights based on expectations grounded in theory.
The group contributed to academic (and practice-relevant) research through early publications on themes such as the EU emissions trading system.
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All members of the group publish actively, although not necessarily in top-level academic journals or with high-level university presses. This is partly due to the nature of the acquisition of research funding, which is not always geared to top-level academic research, but is also practice-oriented. However, the group’s current financing structure mainly relies on RCN-funded projects; in this sense, publishing in high-level academic journals could be an aim the group could pursue more extensively.
The group aims to have strong ties with CICEP, a collaborative project that allows for extensive collaboration with the international partners involved in the project. CICEP also provides a forum for contact with a variety of public and private actors in areas relevant to the research group’s work.
Moreover, all the research group’s externally funded projects have international and/or domestic partners. Some of the projects allow for interdisciplinary synergies and exchanges, such as the project on Europeanisation of energy technological innovation (where the research group collaborates closely with the University of Oslo’s Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture).
The group involves students (including at PhD level) in research projects and activities. It is not an educational institution, however, and therefore does not itself train students academically. The group does not have PhD or postdoctoral students of its own.
However, members of the group, often in collaboration with the University of Oslo, are involved in the supervision of students’ work, especially at the master’s and PhD level.
Research produced by the group is certainly very relevant in societal terms. The theme of energy and climate politics has wide repercussions at both the international and national level. The various themes the group focuses on require academic background research and there is thus a clear link between theory and practice in these research projects. An example of this is the group’s research on how the European Union (EU) has managed to agree on ambitious goals for binding climate and energy targets, while it consists of 28 member states with varying preferences and a European Commission consisting of different entities, without one overarching, harmonious goal. By combining negotiation analysis with integration theory, this group’s research has shown that a package deal was reached in which energy goals, technological innovation and the aspiration to create new ‘green’ jobs were combined.
The research group is based on external funding and the group’s composition and leadership therefore vary with the types of projects acquired. The funding of the group currently mainly relies on the RCN.
More diverse external sources of funding, including EU grants, would be desirable.
The group publishes actively, but could be more visible, for example in high-level academic journals.
The group is actively involved in international and national collaboration, including within the framework of the Centre for Social Science-Related Energy Research (CICEP).
The group’s output has clear societal relevance, both to Norway’s and the EU’s (and international) strategies for and approaches to energy and climate policy.
Assessment of research group: 4 – very good
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• It would be good to consider diversifying external funding sources; although this is not easy, applications for EU grants could be increased
• Measures could be taken to enhance the mobility of researchers
• The share of female researchers could be increased.