@Christian.winzer asked me to contact NGOs and seek support for our grant application.
If you would like to do something similar and need a template, here is my draft for approaching organizations specifically advocating for citizens’ assemblies. But you should also coordinate with Christian too.
Request for letter of support for COST grant
Hello CA advocate
Volunteers from the Open Energy Modelling Initiative (openmod for short) are currently finalizing their COST grant application for networking. Further background on the openmod can be found on wikipedia — with links to our mailing list, forum, and wiki on the right side.
We are asking for letters of support. [see next posting for an explanation of what is being sought]
I’ve lost track of the exact amount being applied for, but it will be six figures. If successful, it will enable us to diversify our network, better engage with the public, and begin to build a predominantly online community to undertake common pool analysis of future energy systems — listed in order of increasing risk.
Further background and discussion on our grant on our online forum.
Because most aspects of energy policy do not have simple answers, integrated analysis is necessary. Furthermore, that analysis should be, at the very least, public, transparent, and reproducible. Which also means suitable open licenses on all code, datasets, and documentation.
Using open science principles, the openmod community is interested in providing support for sortition‑based processes like Citizens’ Assemblies. Modelers could assist by helping select modeling tools, providing datasets, and running various analyses. What individual modelers personally happen to think about potential solutions such as nuclear power, CCS, bioenergy, photovoltaics, demand‑response, or autarky, is largely immaterial.
As indicated, we are seeking support from third‑party organizations to back our COST application in general terms. Absolutely no obligations will arise as a result. But you will need to respond with a letter within a week because the application deadline is 5 September 2019.
In which case, can you reply to Dr Christian Winzer, Center for Energy and Environment, Zurich University of Applied Science (ZHAW) to discuss the details.
A new kind of genuinely open science combined with deep stakeholder engagement offers considerable potential in my view. I’ve been involved academically with energy policy modeling for 25 years and with energy policy more generally for a decade prior. And I am fully convinced that we are dealing with complex systems and that model‑mediated public discourse is both essential and beneficial. But this requires that suitable stakeholder networks, novel public processes, and new relationships with domain experts be developed and refined. Most of the technical tool chain now exists, but the deep engagement with civil society does not — hence our COST grant.
TIA for your support, Robbie