Key points:

  • Horizon 2020 – and most likely soon for Horizon Europe – proposals include both ‘concept’ and ‘impact’ sections. SSH must feature in the foundational arguments that interdisciplinary energy project proposals are based on, and hence evaluators should expect SSH to be explicitly integrated into concept sections.
  • SSH is not merely reserved for impact, where e.g. SSH is used for communications and dissemination that target the market uptake of a new technology.
  • For Horizon Europe, the European Commission should give clear guidance for what their ‘mainstreaming’ ambitions of SSH means for cutting across project proposal plans. More broadly, the integration of disciplinary approaches into actual research questions that guide a project’s whole thinking, should be explicitly welcomed.

Further reading:

  • SHAPE ENERGY sandpits report?
  • SHAPE ENERGY think book?