The Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative (SETI), EfD’s energy collaborative, has moved to EfD Chile, and with the continued support of the colleagues at Duke University and the broader network, the SETI administration team will work to advance the collaborative even further.
SETI is an interdisciplinary global collaborative that aims to foster research on energy access and energy transitions in low and middle-income countries, as well as to understand their drivers, dynamics, and impacts on health, gender equality, economic growth, poverty alleviation, climate change and natural resources.
SETI has built a strong and thriving network of researchers from all over the world since 2015, through EfD’s annual meetings and capacity-building initiatives. SETI has also worked to convene researchers, policymakers, and practitioners at annual conferences to bridge the research-policy gap on topics such as air pollution, clean and improved cooking solutions, electricity access and the gender-energy nexus.
A move to promote initiatives
EfD decided to move the administration of its collaborative programs to different centers in the Global South as a way to encourage centers to lead activities and promote local policy engagement in our network and diversify the voices contributing to collaborative leadership. For SETI, the administrative hub moved to Chile at the start of 2021, and the two teams have worked in close coordination to ensure continuity of network activities and plan for phase two of the network.
During this second phase, SETI will be co-led by Dr. Marcela Jaime and Dr. Mauricio Oyarzo, with continued support from Dr. Marc Jeuland and Dr. Subhrendu Pattanayak, and the steering committee. Additionally, coordination of the network will transfer to Cristóbal Vásquez with continued guidance from Tommy Klug. The collaborative expects to continue developing their 2021-2022 activities and strengthening the partnerships between NENRE-EfD Chile, Duke University, and the EfD Centers.
Planning activities for 2021
EfD Chile has received training by Tommy Klug from February to April on the administrative tasks related to the collaborative and is now planning activities for the year ahead, including SETI’s 6th Annual Meeting on June 17-19, 2021.
“We are very excited to start the co-leadership of the second phase of SETI. Being one of the centers participating actively from the start of the collaborative, we feel honored with this task, and we embrace it with responsibility and enthusiasm. We are working hard to continue supporting sustainable energy transitions in the Global South while strengthening the network and promoting closer collaboration among EfD centers. The team at Duke has done incredible work over the past years, and we will follow in their steps”, says Dr. Marcela Jaime.
“This is an incredibly exciting moment for SETI. Building on the momentum and many contributions of network members over the initial years of the collaborative, the Chile team is bringing new energy to the task of building the evidence base for supporting sustainable energy transitions in the Global South, engaging with policy-makers on how best to leverage that knowledge, and creating a strong, thoughtful, and caring community of scholars. I am grateful today more than ever to be a part of this fantastic group”, says Dr. Marc Jeuland.
What is happening now at SETI?
SETI is currently accepting manuscripts and extended abstracts for the SETI 2021 Virtual Workshop (see Call for Papers here). This will be the first year that the conference will be co-hosted by UdeC and Duke as a collaborative, and while the meeting will be virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be an opportunity to reunite researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to tackle the ever-present challenge of energy transitions in the Global South. If you want to share your ideas about policy themes for this year’s conference, please fill the following form. And finally, if you have any questions about the meeting or transition process, please contact the EfD Chile admin team at seti@udec.cl.
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