Reflections on Interdisciplinary Collaborations for European Energy Policy and Governance

The policy recommendations presented in this book demonstrate the value and opportunities of interdisciplinarity for policymaking. The recommendations produced cover a diverse range of topics and policy areas and are informed by various interdisciplinary collaborative activities. The outputs of the interdisciplinary collaborations evidence: (1) how questions related to energy supply, demand and systems benefit from both Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) perspectives), (2) that the achievement of EU policies can require the participation of multiple actors across multiple scales, (3) how policymaking can be supported not only through research on policy topics, but also by research on the processes of policymaking and their governance environments, and (4) the complex negotiation processes that exist at research-policy interfaces. Yet, there is the need to consider interdisciplinarity, and what this means in practice, critically. In doing so, it demonstrates the value of focusing more on the interdisciplinary processes and experiences in play. Indeed, across the book chapters, there were commonalities in how the interdisciplinary collaborations occurred in practice. This book not only demonstrates the value and opportunities for interdisciplinary research, but also, we hope, will encourage others to engage in interdisciplinary activities.