Adaptive Decision Making for Urban Energy Transformation

The government's advisor on infrastructure decision making, the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), has identified that there is a need for decision support tools which incorporate decisions taken by multiple decision makers, at multiple scales and in different infrastructure systems. This fellowship will specifically respond to that need. A number of tools and approaches exist, which aim to help decision makers to understand and manage the uncertainties associated with long-term decisions. These uncertainties include the effects of interaction between infrastructure systems and of social and environmental change. However, most tools and approaches assume that there is one decision maker with clearly defined objectives and that their preferences stay the same over time. The interaction between different decision makers (or actors as they are often called) is an additional uncertainty that is rarely recognised. However, it is becoming increasingly important as we try to transition infrastructures more rapidly and as new technologies and ways of working are forcing closer interaction between infrastructures and decision makers.

This fellowship will develop a multi-actor, adaptive approach to decision making based on long-term planning approaches developed to support decisions in the face of social and environmental change. The new approach will allow decision makers to also consider uncertainty associated with constraints from decision making at other scales and in other systems. It will develop accessible methods to analyse interactions between decision makers and to identify activities required to transform infrastructure that reflect and capitalise on these interactions. It will develop rapid and transparent modelling methods to help analyse how decision maker interactions affect the successful implementation of activities and how this contributes to infrastructure transformation. It will apply these methods and models to case studies to develop long-term but adaptable plans for infrastructure transformation. The outputs of decision maker analysis methods and modelling will be used to create adaptable pathways of activities that can transform infrastructure but also respond to social and environmental change or constraints from other decision makers. The combination of methods and models to create adaptable pathways is the multi-actor, adaptive decision making approach, which is the main output of this fellowship.

I will develop the methods, models and overarching approach using urban energy as a test-case. Both the Committee on Climate Change and the NIC have identified that transforming urban energy systems is essential to the UK's sustainable development and is urgently in need of long-term decision support, which makes it a timely and nationally important test-case. However, the potential for cities to deliver this transformation is stifled by decisions taken at national, regional and household scales and in other infrastructure systems. This makes it very difficult for cities to engage with the energy system in the way that could deliver on their social, environmental and economic objectives.

I will use three case studies of urban energy; two in the UK and one in a less developed country, working closely with real decision makers and using participatory techniques to ensure that the approach and models are both robust and relevant. I will set up a Local Infrastructure Commission, to identify how city activity could be better co-ordinated locally and with national actors. The approaches and tools developed will have relevance to other infrastructure systems, beyond energy, and in other contexts, beyond the UK.

The fellowship comes at a crucial time in my career, and I am ready to dedicate significant time and resources to building an evidence base and research group, which are essential to developing my thought leadership and research influence in academia, policy and industry at the international level.

I have nine years' experience in practice and seven years in academia. This gives me unique insights into the need for new approaches to decision making, which require novel academic methods, and how best to approach, develop and test them in practice so that they make a difference.

National government and regulators: A recent call for ideas from the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) identified a number of gaps in evidence to which this fellowship will directly contribute, including; how transport relates to other types of infrastructure, systems thinking on infrastructure, cross-infrastructure decision making and innovation drivers across energy and transport. Furthermore, the approaches and tools developed in this fellowship are relevant to national policy makers and regulators to enable them to develop long-term plans in complex multi-actor, multi-level systems. This includes the departments of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Communities and Local Government, and Transport, and energy regulators (Ofgem). These departments could specifically benefit from modelling techniques that could improve the effectiveness of policy by better representing real-world actor interactions.
The research will identify specific changes that could be made to national decisions and rules that will enable cities to engage more effectively in urban energy transformation. This will support evidence-based policy and more effective analysis of how radical change can be instituted. This could accelerate energy system transformation to contribute to government targets on emissions reduction, energy security and affordability.

There are a number of select committees to which this fellowship could contribute evidence to support the scrutiny of government activity. The Environment Audit Committee is particularly influential in this area and has recently called for the government to boost the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles, to more effectively factor in long-term environmental risks into its decisions and to encourage departments to work together on environmental issues.

Local and regional government: The proposed research will develop long-term energy transformation strategies for case study organisations, which will directly contribute to their aims and operations. The approaches and tools will be designed to immediately help the 130 local authorities who are actively planning and investing in energy provision and to encourage the remaining 300 to engage more actively. It will also enable the 28 city regional groupings who have negotiated City Deals to take greater control over infrastructure investment. The research will help both local authorities and city regions to develop make more effective use of this investment and also to advocate change at other scales. It will demonstrate the value of a Local Infrastructure Commission to interact with the NIC and as a co-ordination mechanism for city activities.

Private Enterprise: The decision making and modelling approaches might be commercialisable and support consultancy services in policy, infrastructure and business planning. The research will also provide insight to help private infrastructure operators understand their role in infrastructure transformation and the direction that future local government intervention and incentives might take to help improve business planning.

The public: The approaches and models developed will be highly participatory so will provide a structured and transparent means to engage the public in infrastructure decision making. This will ensure that, in the short term, the perspectives that represent the 750,000 residents of Leeds are more readily taken into account through the LIC and that, in the long-term, the residents of 433 other cities could learn from approaches used. This could ensure that infrastructure is transformed in a way that benefits the public as well as achieves national goals and aspirations.