Submitted by Jonas Meckling on
This project aims to illuminate the role of public institutions in this process within the United States, first by mapping the functions of different commercialization institutions (for example, goal setting, derisking, imposing discipline, facilitating learning, coordinating policies, or managing conflict) and then analyzing their links with policy and commercialization outcomes. The International Energy Agency estimates that 35% of cumulative emission reductions necessary to achieve the Paris climate goals hinge on technologies that are currently only at the prototype or demonstration phase. As such, our capacity to achieve a clean energy transition at the speed and scale necessary to avoid irreversible global catastrophe depends on our ability to guide these technologies through commercialization and widespread adoption. This project aims to illuminate the role of public institutions in this process within the United States. Such institutions include, for instance, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The project will map the functions of different commercialization institutions (for example, goal setting, derisking, imposing discipline, facilitating learning, coordinating policies, or managing conflict) and then analyze their links with policy and commercialization outcomes. The project will help us understand how to best design programs and agencies to effectively support the commercialization of clean energy technologies.
We are hiring several students for the project. The primary tasks would be:
1) Triangulating between different sources—such as government documents, websites, secondary literature, and interviews—to identify institutions for our sample. Some examples of relevant institutions include Innovation Hubs, ARPA-E, programs within the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, and specific institutional provisions within the Inflation Reduction Act.
2) Qualitative inductive and deductive coding of the design features relevant to each institution within the sample. This will help us build up the dataset that will serve as the foundation for the rest of the project.
Proficiency in Excel as well as some level of prior training in public policy, political science, or social sciences more broadly is necessary. Please highlight your relevant coursework in your application. It would also be helpful to know how many hours per week you would like to work on the project. Most importantly, we are looking for students with a genuine interest in the project and a keen willingness to learn.