As an active key actor in the spatial planning and social innovation arena for Renewable Energy Landscapes REL, the PEARLS project will reinforce the population’s commitment to secure, clean and efficient energy. REL are regarded as spaces where renewable energies change the population’s relationship with energy and their landscape perception. Despite all efforts, resistance to REL lingers in Europe/the U.S., while the reasons for strong social acceptance in Mediterranean and South American countries is still unknown. Thus PEARLS will focus on Southern Europe and Israel due to their wealth of renewable energy resources and citizens’ deep engagement with REL.

PEARLS will radically transform scientific knowledge on how to best implement REL across Europe and extend southern landscapes towards other Mediterranean countries through participant networks. PEARLS will generate a step change in the way that REL are theorised, detected and addressed and provide crucial support for the Pan-European Energy Challenge by establishing international, intersectoral and multidisciplinary collaboration as the nexus of a five-country holistic pool of universities and research centres in close cooperation with non-academic sectors. All Partnership members, from five universities and nine non-academic beneficiaries (companies, private consultancies, cooperatives and business associations) have proven expertise and experience in working with renewable energy, energy policy, REL, spatial planning and social innovation, through the internationalisation of applied research and training for capacity development. Via secondments, staff exchange and collaborative inquiry, the project will investigate how to enforce renewable energy best practice to contribute to the Energy Challenge. Deliverables will be provided by working reports, websites, video channels, toolkits, training and methodology materials, seminars, and scientific papers, academic journals and books.