Workshop on Just Transition to a Net Zero Carbon Society
A workshop on Just Transition to a Net Zero Carbon Society was held on 28th July 2021. The workshop was delivered by the Energy Technology Partnership (ETP), Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering (SRPe) and ScotChem, in collaboration with the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN).
The workshop focused on two key areas within zero carbon; aligned with Government priorities (Scottish Government Energy Strategy; Scottish Government Hydrogen Policy Statement; Scottish Government Climate Change Plan; Transport Scotland National Transport Strategy; Just Transition Commission – A national mission for a fairer, greener Scotland):
Sustainable mobility
Sustainability manufacturing
Identifying where the immediate and long-term challenges exist for the Just Transition to Net Zero and how collaborative research and innovation can help overcome them, is critical to contributing to a more innovative economy.
The workshop focused on low carbon, sustainable manufacturing and skills for the future. It explored how collaborative research and innovation can build on the Government’s vision of Scotland’s Green Economic Recovery to create economic growth and feed the high value skills pipeline to address the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities ahead.
The workshop included presentations by John Birtwhistle, Head of Policy, First Group and John Hand, Chemical Science Specialist, Scottish Enterprise. These presentations provided context and identified the grand challenges in this area.
The presentations were followed by breakout sessions on behaviour, policy and funding, and skills. Dr Caroline Cantley, Executive Director of SRPe, chaired a breakout session on Technology & Infrastructure, which explored the technology and infrastructure priorities for enabling collaborative research and innovation within the sustainable manufacturing sector between academia / public sector /industry to:
contribute to Scotland’s Green Economic Recovery and create sustainable green economic growth as part of Scotland’s Just Transition to Net Zero 2045
ensure that technology and infrastructure can meet R&I needs moving forward
attract inward investment to Scotland of both capital and capability
The event report including key outcomes and next steps can be found here:
SRIF Just Transition to a Net Zero Carbon Society [PDF]
The workshop was part of a challenge-focused workshop series, organised by Research Innovation Scotland (RIS) in collaboration with the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN). The series aims to explore how collaborative research and innovation can tackle grand challenges and help Scotland build back better from Covid-19.