Fuel Poverty Experts

Professor Lucie Middlemiss 

School of Earth & Environment, Faculty of Environment 

Relevant ESRC Discipline:  Environmental Planning 

Fuel Poverty Experts is a means of raising the public profile of academic work on Fuel Poverty in anticipation of substantial interest in the topic this autumn. Rising costs of living are already hitting hard, but further rises in home energy costs in November will deepen this crisis. Home energy makes up a large proportion of household budgets for those on low and middle incomes, and we anticipate considerable attention will be paid to Fuel Poverty in the public debate. The project is a partnership between universities of Leeds, Sheffield Hallam and Sussex, and non-academic Fuel Poverty Research Network (FPRN). The project will foreground credible and rigorous academic evidence on Fuel Poverty, raising the profile of academic voices in the public domain.  

 The project will generate: a website (linked to FPRN), a directory of experts, a social media presence (@FuelPovExperts), press releases linked to relevant research, and timely responses to events and news in the coming six months. We require funding to set up these resources, we also have a long-term plan to ensure that this is an ongoing venture through the involvement of FPRN. Similar funding applications are being submitted by Ambrose and Martiskainen to SHU and Sussex.