Professor Harriet Thomson is an award-winning interdisciplinary academic with world leading expertise in energy research and social science. Her research interests broadly concern the role of public policy and policymaking processes in shaping energy systems, structural inequalities in the distribution of housing and access to affordable and clean forms of energy, health and wellbeing outcomes, and indicators for measuring the complex realities of energy poverty. Since 2021, she also been actively involved with mainstreaming climate change within Social Policy. These are themes that carry through to her research-led teaching, both in her home institution, and abroad as a visiting lecturer. 

Conducting transformative policy-relevant research and doing so in a participatory and holistic manner are core elements of her research ethos. To achieve this, she has consistently worked across disciplines and sectors to forge collaborations and international networks, comprising policymakers, regulators, local communities, and other key stakeholders. These efforts have resulted in several active international consortium projects across Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and to date she has been awarded in excess of £6.5 million in research funding from the European Research Council, European Commission, British Council, Global Challenges Research Fund, and other sources.

Professor Thomson’s research outputs have been used to influence the framing of policy approaches to address energy poverty worldwide, and she regularly conducts policy-orientated work with organisations such as the United Nations, G20, European Commission, and the European Environment Agency. Between 2016-2020, she was the founding Project Manager of the European Commission’s EU Energy Poverty Observatory, which involved defining a universal set of monitoring indicators, creating the world’s largest evidence base, and directly supporting policy-makers in implementing new legislative measures to tackle energy poverty. The significant policy impacts of her research were recognised by the ESRC, who awarded her an Outstanding Impact prize in 2017. 

• Energy poverty/fuel poverty
• Health and wellbeing impacts
• Latin American energy and climate policy
• European energy and climate policy
• Comparative social policy
• Participatory research methods
• Socially just transitions to net zero
• Integrating social and climate policies

Research groups

• Socio-Environmental Action
• Social & Urban Policy

List by: Type | Date

Current projects

• 2025-2030: European Research Council Consolidator Grant, €2m for 'Energy Divides in Europe: Closing Gaps in Understanding for Transformative Alleviation of Energy Poverty' (EnCUENTA) (PI)
• 2021-2025:  Social Policy Association, £3,000, Climate Justice and Social Policy Group (CUSP) (Founding member and Co-I).
• 2020-2025: Global Challenges Research Fund, £1.3m for ‘Energy Solidarity in Latin America: generating inclusive knowledge and governance to address energy vulnerability and energy systems resilience' (ESLatinA) (PI).

Past projects

• 2021-2024: Horizon 2020, €2m, Community Energy for Energy Solidarity (CEES) (Co-I).
• 2020-2022: British Council – Newton Fund, £216,464 for ‘Capabilities-led energy poverty alleviation via innovative community solutions (CaPAS)’ (Project Investigator).
• 2020: UoB IGI 'Research Co-Design sandpits', £13,590, for ‘Understanding and mitigating the domestic energy impacts of COVID-19 in Mexico’. 
• 2020-2021: UoB ESRC IAA, £8,383 for ‘Co-constructing a Finnish Energy Observatory’.
• 2019: British Council Higher Education Alliances grant, £6,500, for ‘Embedding action research in energy teaching to foster inclusive knowledge societies in Oaxaca’ (Project Investigator).
• 2017 – 2022: European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) scheme, ca. €520,000 (Co-I, Vice-Chair, and co-lead of Work Package 2: Implementation – Developing an operational framework)
• 2016-2020: ‘EU Energy Poverty Observatory’, €813,000 from the European Commission to support national policy-makers in addressing energy poverty (Co-PI and Project Manager) 
• 2016: Eaga Charitable Trust, ca. £10,000, to host a pan-EU energy poverty workshop (PI)
• 2013: Eaga Charitable Trust, £4,726, for 'Fuel poverty measurement in Europe', which involved a pilot survey in eight EU Member States, and production of a trilingual toolkit for key stakeholders (PI)

Taitto, Anni, The health and wellbeing impacts of the energy transition for low-income renters: a comparative UK-Australia study - University of Glasgow

Kunwar, Sudarshan, Addressing Energy Poverty in the light of Climate Change in Rural Nepal - University of Birmingham

Gosztonyi, Ákos, The Disproportionate Burden of Urban Air Pollution and its Links to the Built Environment and Energy Poverty - University of Helsinki (Advisory Committee)

Tiare Robles Bonilla, Metodología para inclusión de criterios sociales en la medición de resiliencia de los sistemas energéticos en el marco del desarrollo sustentable - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Advisory Committee)

• Taitto, Anni
  The health and wellbeing impacts of the energy transition for low-income renters: a comparative UK-Australia study

Since 2018, Harriet has been a Visiting Lecturer at the Institute for Renewable Energy, National Autonomous University of Mexico, focusing on interdisciplinary approaches, and the social aspects of energy.

Prizes

• 2021: Shortlisted for ‘Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences', Times Higher Education Awards
• 2021: Highly Commended, Making a Difference Awards, University of Manchester
• 2018 and 2019: College of Social Sciences (University of Birmingham) Founders’ Award for Outstanding Early-Career Academic
• 2017: Winner of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Celebrating Impact Prize in the Outstanding Early Career Impact category