The energy transition presents a career-defining challenge in many disciplines and professions. Because of the breadth of this challenge, the very expertise across sectors needed to achieve the transition can present barriers to collaboration and progress. This course will prototype an effort to better understand these barriers in the classroom in ways that might overcome them in practice. Both instructors and students are drawn from technology and policy disciplines and a seminar format will emphasize discussion across these backgrounds.
The course uses case studies of grand challenges in the energy transition to identify repeatable, process- oriented best practices for solving complex, systemic problems. This course is intended for graduate students with a background in social sciences and humanities (economics, political science, law, planning, design, etc.) and students with a background in STEM programs (science and engineering).