ESRC – Centre in Sustainable and Equitable Low-Carbon Living

Funding available to establish a centre in sustainable and equitable low-carbon living.

ESRC are looking for a centre to support the UK’s transition to sustainable and equitable low-carbon living.

The centre will bring together the right people, disciplines, institutions and infrastructure to provide the evidence needed for this challenge within a five-year timeframe.

The centre will inform policies and incentive structures that influence the actions of individuals, communities, organisations, and local and national governments in bringing about a lasting shift to more sustainable and equitable low-carbon living alongside adapting to the impacts of climate change. This will include working to understand:

• The barriers, trade-offs, co-benefits and impacts of different solutions
• What policies, regulations, consumer behaviours, governance, legislation, business models, and standards are needed
• How to leverage complex interacting social and economic processes at all levels (individual behaviours, community action, political and business decisions).

The centre’s leadership team must work with and be responsive to the needs of UK decision makers, with a specific focus on supporting government departments in addressing their evidence needs.

Justice, equity and empowerment will be vital to effective solutions. The centre will consider interventions in the context of the wider impact, co-benefits and potential disadvantages for all people, nature and environments.

A collaborative approach to creating solutions in partnership with a range of stakeholders and across research disciplines that span UKRI’s remit is strongly encouraged.

The centre’s objectives will be to:

• Provide rapid advice to decision makers in UK government and industry based on a synthesis of existing evidence
• Deliver new, transformative, interdisciplinary, systems-based research to address key evidence gaps
• Test interventions on the ground in partnership with local and national stakeholders
• Work with a coalition of partners (including governments, community groups and industry) to co-produce and deliver a programme of activities to implement and scale effective practices
• Collaborate and coordinate with new investments within the UKRI ‘building a green future’ theme
• Support the development of skills, research capabilities and capacity within the research community. For example, through coaching and mentoring, placements, and fellowships.

The centre will have the following short-term outcomes:

• New interdisciplinary research and evidence synthesis that informs policy and spending decisions on, and the adoption of, low-carbon living solutions
• Enhanced tools for stakeholders’ decision making, particularly government departments, and collaboration in implementing solutions
• Catalysing and accelerating collaboration between researchers, government, industry and other stakeholders interested in equitable, low carbon living
• Increased capacity and capability of the research community to rapidly generate and disseminate research evidence that helps decision makers understand the relative cost-effectiveness of different interventions and the feasibility of scaling different interventions as part of regional or national rollouts.