The Research Design Challenge set out to showcase how different Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines approach three scientific energy problems, namely control, change, and capacity-building in energy systems. This design challenge is an attempt to foster interdisciplinary collaboration in the energy-SSH community throughout Europe. 31 researchers based in 14 different European countries and representing 16 SSH disciplines came together through SHAPE ENERGY funding and developed 13 research designs according to the challenges defined.