Energy Transition, Geopolitics & Urban Security

The Groningen Energy Summer School 2016 for PhD students takes an interdisciplinary approach to the societal and technological dimensions of energy transition. By bringing together and combining a broad range of disciplines, this event will offer a unique opportunity to PhD students to become aware of different aspects of energy transition, to develop novel insights, and to create synergy in approaches to energy transition. During the summer school, the participants will attend lectures by specialists in the field, present their own and each other’s work, and play an active role in workshops and discussions.

This 5^th summer school in a highly successful series addresses the consequences of changes in critical energy infrastructures. From global trade patterns in (non)renewable energy sources to local networks with decentralized production, the Summer School will discuss new ways of mapping and understanding value chains at various levels of analysis. In today’s strongly urbanized world dependence on reliable and sustainable energy supply has taken new forms. Concerns about urban security trump national security in many ways, involving interregional and global networks of interdependence. ICT has added an essential new dimension to conventional and innovative energy systems, adding cybersecurity to the equation. Nevertheless, traditional state-centric geopolitics is the dominant way of thinking in both politics and economics.

The summer school wants to explore the interrelation between new technological developments in the field of energy transition and existing social-economic and political practices. How to map today’s and tomorrow’s energy landscapes? How are opportunities and vulnerabilities evaluated by companies and governments? How to understand the dynamics between micro and macro networks in the production, transport, distribution and consumption of energy? What are the consequences for the alleged return of geopolitics? By interaction between natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, the humanities, economics and law unique new insights will emerge, as the previous Energy Summer Schools have demonstrated.

The summer school will provide PhD students with an opportunity to connect to new networks, to learn from experts in the field, including practitioners, and to discuss their own work.

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