CESET awarded impact funding

Congratulations to our CESET Principal Investigator, Professor Vanesa Castán Broto, on successfully applying for funding from the University of Sheffield’s ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA). The University was awarded ESRC IAA funding to support the delivery of knowledge exchange and activities focused on generating impact from its social sciences research portfolio.

Vanesa will work with CESET co-investigators Professor Carlos Shenga and Lorraine Howe of the Centre for Research on Governance and Development to examine the implementation of a new off-grid regulation in Mozambique.

The new IAA project entitled “Maximising the uptake of community energy in the current regulatory landscape of Mozambique” will track the impact of our GCRF/ESRC funded CESET project. The CESET project focuses on the delivery of community energy in selected countries and has a strong impact component. During the first year of the project, a new off-grid regulation was passed in Mozambique changing the landscape of off-grid energy. We participated in the consultation of that regulation and had a strong influence on the final text (we are tracking that influence). However, there is now an opportunity to understand and influence the process of implementation of the regulation. Our research is looking into the current change of public discourses around energy, but this IAA funding will enable us to influence that change and demonstrate the potentialities of community energy. The IAA funding will support the team to deliver a strategy to influence government institutions, NGO, the local government and private actors directly. Specifically, the team will:

• Examine the new regulation and how it changes existing concerns.
• Map the key actors that can implement the regulation (NGOs, community groups, private businesses).
• Deliver a systemic programme of interviews with those actors to understand their new expectations and what problems they may find in implementing the regulation and develop a dialogue with policy makers.
• Undertake a series of interviews with key policy makers, businesses and third sector workers on the possibilities for community energy and how their work has been impacted by the new off-grid regulation.
• Produce targeted briefings in collaboration with the Mozambican Association of Renewables.
• For the institutions participating the project this additional work will share best practice and show policy makers what bottlenecks are preventing the implementation of the regulation.

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