Shifts in the smart research agenda? 100 priority questions to accelerate sustainable energy futures

“Smart consumption”. ‘What is that? Energy transitions are at the top of global agendas. The EU is positioning itself as playing a pivotal role in addressing climate risks and sustainability imperatives. Smart consumption as a key element of these efforts, however, mostly explored from a predominantly technical perspective thus often failing to identify or address fundamental interlinkages with social systems and consequences. This paper contributes to interdisciplinary energy research by analysing a forward looking ‘Horizon Scan’ research agenda for smart consumption, driven by the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). A systematic Delphi Method exercise among over 70 SSH scholars from various institutional settings across Europe, reveals what SSH scholars see as future directions for smart consumption research. 100 SSH Research Questions are identified, grouped in 7 themes, representing key ‘shifts’ this smart research agenda when compared to previous agendas:
(1) From technological inevitability to political choice, highlighting the need for a wider political critique, with the potential to open up discussions of the instrumentalisation of smart research;
(2) From narrow representation to diverse inclusion, moving beyond the shortcomings of current discourses for engaging marginalised communities; and
(3) From individual consumers to interconnected citizens, reframing smart consumption to offer a broader model of social change and governance. Social Sciences and Humanities scholarship is essential to address these shifts in meaningful, going beyond the commonly applied tokenistic ways. This agenda and the shifts it embodies represent key tools to enable better interdisciplinary working between SSH and teams from the technical and natural sciences.