Project description
Addressing persistent energy poverty in Europe
Energy poverty remains a persistent and widespread issue across Europe, despite the successes of the Green Deal and related energy transition efforts. Vulnerable communities are often excluded from, or negatively affected by, these transitions. In this context, the ERC-funded EnCUENTA project will develop a framework to understand energy poverty. It will document its drivers, identify data gaps and injustices in official indicators, and trace policy biases and path dependencies. The aim is to accelerate the creation of inclusive, equitable policies throughout Europe.
Objective
Despite emphatic political rhetoric promising just energy transitions, the harsh reality of energy poverty in Europe remains a stark contradiction. Vulnerable communities are not only largely excluded and sometimes negatively impacted by the energy transition but are increasingly facing a reality where living without energy is their new norm due to worsening socioeconomic and infrastructural conditions, with significant societal impacts. These energy divides manifest in the use of alternative fuels for heating (such as firewood and household waste), forced energy rationing, and dangerous coping strategies. However, these issues are absent from mainstream indicators due to the dominance of narrow techno-economic frameworks that fail to account for the complexities of energy poverty, leading many people to fall through the cracks of measurement and policy. Drawing on an unprecedented combination of complexity theory, energy justice, policy science, phenomenology, behavioural science, data feminism, and intersectionality, EnCUENTA pursues five objectives: 1) Create a ground-breaking new multi-dimensional, multi-scalar theoretical framework of energy poverty that considers individual, institutional, and infrastructural factors; 2) Document a diverse range of energy poverty drivers and adaptive coping strategies across ten European locations; 3) Assess the gaps and data injustices found within official energy poverty indicators, and trial innovative new lived experience-derived indicators across 5 national surveys; 4) Trace the path dependencies that give rise to the current energy policy landscapes at the pan-European and national scales, and explore policymaker views and biases; 5) Accelerate inclusive policy design across Europe via experimental randomised controlled trials of policymaker debiasing interventions, alongside recommendations for institutional reforms and new indicators that are fit for purpose in ensuring no one is left behind in European energy policy.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities languages and literature literature studies literary genres essays
- social sciences sociology gender studies women’s studies
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
G12 8QQ Glasgow
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.