The Human Factor

Work package 7: The Human factor

Principal investigator

Other researchers

Do you want to work on The Human Factor?

We are looking for the best social scientist to figure out the psychological changes and barriers towards accelerating the energy and mobility transition

Work package 7: The Human factor

Objectives

  1. Determine the basis for public support or resistance with regard to innovative technologies in the
    domains of energy and mobility: What makes people willing?
  2. Determine the most important psychological factors that trigger energy and mobility related
    sustainable actions on the part of individuals for whom such actions are feasible: What makes
    people act?
  3. Determine the most important socio-technical factors that facilitate the acceptance and adoption of
    innovative technological solutions in the domains of energy and mobility: Which aspects of
    innovative technology make people smile?

Activities

  1. Perform a systematic review establishing the current evidence base for what determines public
    support of, and opposition to innovative technologies in the domains of energy and mobility.
  2. Perform a systematic review establishing the current evidence base for what triggers energy and
    mobility related sustainable actions.
  3. Perform a systematic review establishing the current evidence base for what socio-technical factors
    facilitate the acceptance and adoption of innovative technological solutions in the domains of
    energy and mobility.
  4. Establish the practice-based relevance of the insights from the systematic reviews by means of indepth
    interviews with experts involved in the innovative technological solutions.
  5. Establish the practice-based relevance of the insights from the systematic reviews by means of
    focus group discussions with potential consumers.
  6. Setting up a series of Delphi studies to determine the most influential ‘adoption and acceptance’
    factors related to the specific technologies of interest in this project.
  7. Designing lab-experiments to test the actual effect of the defined psychological ‘adoption and
    acceptance’ factors on the uptake of the innovative technologies:
    a. Do they stimulate public support?
    b. Do they trigger actions?

Expected output

  1. At least 4 scientific papers detailing the result of research into the aforementioned objectives
    a. The most crucial evidence based human factors (M12)
    b. The practice based relevance of the evidence based human factors (M24)
    c. The actual effect on public opinion and consumer uptake: the energy case (M36)
    d. The actual effect on public opinion and consumer uptake: the mobility case (M48)
  2. At least 3 (public/professional/policy) listed taxonomies of influential factors related to the uptake
    of innovative technologies in the domains of energy and mobility (M18)
  3. At least 4 professional Dutch publications on the importance of the human factor in developing
    successful innovative technological solutions for climate change (M12, M24, M36, M48)
  4. A roadmap on how to develop ‘public & consumer-friendly’ technological solutions for climate
    change (M48)
  5. A full PhD thesis that builds upon the scientific papers listed above (M48)
  6. Personal parameters to parametrize the agents in the integral model.
  7. Contributions to papers containing integral model scenarios.