CEP was part of the School of Government and Public Policy’s submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which Times Higher Education has ranked as #1 across the UK in the Politics and International Studies Unit of Assessment. Virtually all of the School’s research outputs were rated as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’ and 100% of the impact of this research, which included a CEP impact case study, was rated as outstanding.
These results are part of an overall strong performance by the University of Strathclyde in the REF 2021 with almost 90% of 1800 research outputs submitted by the university rated in the 3-star and 4-star categories of ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally-excellent’.
Professor Karen Turner, Director, Centre for Energy Policy said:
“This is an outstanding result for the Centre, the School of Government and Public Policy and the University as a whole, and the CEP are delighted that we have been able to make an important contribution to this success."
“As a Centre we are absolutely committed to ensuring our research has real-world relevance and impact in the wider public policy space concerning energy, climate and net zero issues and challenges. Our impact case study demonstrates how we have achieved this across a wide range of policy areas including industrial decarbonisation, energy efficiency and low carbon transport.”
“Being based in the School of Government and Public Policy within Strathclyde’s faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, a school that fosters interdisciplinary working across the core discipline of political science, economics, engineering, and other disciplines, has been fundamental to our success and enabled us to frame, understand and identify responses to public policy challenges in timely and relevant ways for policymakers.”
Shaping net zero policy
CEP’s impact case study outlined how the Centre’s research examining the wider economic consequences of energy and climate policy actions in different sectors has helped policy stakeholders frame and build consensus for different strategies and interventions. In particular it:
- Informed the UK Chancellor’s July 2020 decision to begin allocating substantial public spending to support residential energy efficiency.
- Shaped the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) 2018 policy strategy on carbon capture, usage and storage with focus on sustaining and growing the jobs and GDP contribution of UK industry as it decarbonises.
- Changed the framing of Scottish Government’s decisions on energy efficiency policy to emphasise the importance of enabling wider economy gains.
Read more about CEP’s impact, our projects, our contribution to the University of Strathclyde’s REF success, and follow our blog and policy briefing series.