Organised by the Centre for Energy Transition and the University Entrepreneur in Residence Ian Phillips, the workshops seek to identify new areas of research in three Energy Transition areas:
- Research opportunities assuming the continued use of Hydrocarbons to supply energy across the world
- Research opportunities assuming that the human race completely replaces hydrocarbons to supply our energy
- Research opportunities helping society to just use less energy
Demand for energy continues to grow by 1.5-2.0% as the population of our planet increase. There are now over 8 billion people on earth – with projections between 9 and 11 billion by 2050. Today around 85% of the world’s energy is supplied by hydrocarbons. Although renewables are expanding rapidly, they are largely meeting the annual increase in energy demand rather than reducing our use of hydrocarbons.
The aim of these workshops is to identify research capability within the University that can map to the demands of industry and of government to the funding available in the UK and Europe, leading to new interdisciplinary research projects that attract new funding to the University.
Workshop 2 – Completely replacing hydrocarbons (4 hours)
Monday 19 January 2026, 9am – 1pm
Meeting Room 1 (7th Floor), Sir Duncan Rice Library
With the rapid growth in the availability and deployment of renewable energy sources (solar / wind / wave / tidal / hydro etc), this workshop will seek opportunities for research that catalyses and enables the rapid conversion of our current hydrocarbon-dominated energy system and civilisation to a zero-carbon energy system.
The key feature of such a system is that we simply don’t produce any CO2 in the energy production and consumption process. Potential areas of interest include developing new energy mechanisms (e.g. naturally occurring hydrogen; low and high enthalpy geothermal etc); short and long term energy storage to deal with the intermittency of any of the low-carbon energy sources; new ways of delivering industrial and domestic energy; costs; the commercial and economic impact; societal acceptance and other aspects of such a major change in how we deliver our energy demands..
Each workshop will consist of a blend of
- Information on aspects of the Energy Transition being presented to frame discussions
- Information on current and forthcoming grants and other funding opportunities in the Energy Transition space.
- Round table brainstorming and development of ideas that could evolve into fundable research programmes
- Initiating of groups interested in pursuing specific research objectives (and funding)
Each workshop will be led by Ian Phillips - the Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Aberdeen. He has an industrial career spanning 25 years in oil and gas, and a further 15 years in energy transition – most recently as the Project Director for the Acorn carbon capture and storage and blue hydrogen project. He will be supported by others invited to share their expertise and perspectives to ensure a productive workshop.
Please see the workshop flyer here:January_2026_-_Energy_Transition_Research_Workshops.pdf
How to sign up:
Please e-mail interdisciplinary@abdn.ac.uk stating
- Your name; school; areas of research interest
- Which workshops you wish to attend
- Venue
- Meeting Room 1 (7th Floor), The Sir Duncan Rice Library
- Contact
-
Please direct any queries to: interdisciplianry@abdn.ac.uk