Anne Beaulieu
Research and Publications
New project on energy, innovation and community
Imagine a group of people coming together around the shared project to produce energy locally, and who ways to benefit from more social connections, as well as cheaper and cleaner energy. That’s a recipe for a sustainable future!
This is the focus of a project for which funding has recently been announced, and entitled ‘Social entrepreneurship at the grid edge’.
Led by Charlotte Johnson (UCL), this project will explore how community groups can generate value through an energy system that is becoming more flexible and distributed. The project focuses specifically on demand side response and collective self-consumption opportunities.
Besides this great topic, another exciting aspect of this project is that it will connect critical infrastructure studies and place-based entrepreneurship theory, thereby linking two lines of work at Campus Fryslan on sustainable entrepreneurship (Emma Folmer) and on knowledge infrastructures for sustainability (Anne Beaulieu).
The project will include a comparative element between the UK and the Netherlands. This part of the project will be done by Esther van der Waal, who is just completing a PhD on Local energy innovators: collective experimentation for energy transition at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen.Dr Anna Rebmann (Kings College Business School) will also be involved.
A steering committee of stakeholders and academics will further support the project; UK Power Networks, Carbon Coop, Power2Change, Newham Council, Dr Sarah Darby (University of Oxford), Prof Sarah Bell (UCL IEDE), Prof David Shipworth (UCL Energy Institute) and Dr Anne Beaulieu (University of Groningen).
How does the pandemic help us teach our students to change the world?
A brand new podcast from Campus Fryslan: Together with Sepideh Yousefzadeh and Saskia Rosendaal of Campus Fryslan, we discuss the need to reflect on our teaching practices and how we are reinventing them, the welfare of students and the prospects for incoming students and what their fresher year might look like.
We also consider how the pandemic changes not only how we teach, but also what we teach–this huge social mobilization is a weighty experience. How does it help us teach our students how to change the world?
Find the podcast here. More episodes from Campus Fryslan to come…
PhD Scholarship Valuing Big Data
Academic education after the pandemic
At long last, the debate about the kind of education we want to be providing is emerging. The Data Research Centre (DRC) has an opinion piece on Science Guide and we have produced a discussion guidefor the academic community on distance learning. A webinar hosted by ArtEZ University of the Arts addressed Crisis Education//Critical Education. I couldn’t join the live event, but the background videos were great!
The triathlon toolbox
Sometimes we realise that areas of life inform each other in unexpected ways. How does my passion for triathlon matter for my professional development? This is the topic of reflections I shared with the Campus Fryslan community. Curious about how endurance sports translates to academic life in the time of corona? The answer can be found on the CF blog.
New edition of course on Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Starting this week, Campus Fryslan will host a second a edition (2020) of the lecture series ‘Succesvol duurzaam ondernemen in een circulaire economie’. I will contribute a session on Technology and Sustainability and engage with this group of professionals who are committed to the transition to a circular economy in the Northern Netherlands.
Two positions at Campus Fryslân
Apply to become my new colleagues
!
Two positions (assistant professor) are currently open at the University of Groningen. A background in STS is relevant for both positions, and both are located in the new faculty Campus Fryslan, an interdisciplinary and innovative setting.
Assistant Professor Data Science (0.8 fte)
Assistant Professor Earth & Energy (0.8 – 1.0 FTE)
Please note that the deadline for applications is 23 February 2020.
PhD opportunity: Knowledge Infrastructures for Climate Adaptation
We have a PhD position on the topic of Knowledge Infrastructures for Climate Adaptation. In the framework of unprecedented global environmental change, it is crucial to map and increase environmental resilience. In this project, we aim to acquire insights into ongoing environmental changes in delta areas and build sustainable knowledge infrastructures that can elucidate ongoing changes.
The candidate will be supervised by Tessa van der Voort and myself. More details on the project and how to apply on the jobs website of the University of Groningen.
Launching of WTMC series
Looking back on 2019, I’m especially proud of having led the launch of the WTMC series on teaching and learning STS. This series is based on the collective wisdom of the WTMC network that gets channelled into training events for PhDs. Each issue of the series is based on a workshop or summer school organised by WTMC. Bernike Pasveer and I, as coordinators, shape the events– drawing on STS experts and organising interaction with participants.
Now, thanks to the series and its many contributors, the insights on important STS topics and approaches can be share much more widely. At the WTMC annual meeting on 13 December 2019, the first 5 issues of the WTMC Series on Teaching and Learning STS were launched. They are available on the WTMC website (https://www.wtmc.eu/wtmc-series/)
New issues will appear regularly, following the workshops and summer schools. Your comments and feedback on this new initiative are very welcome!
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Why are there different forms of digital identity?
The conference Figurations (part of the wonderful People like You project) was the opportunity to start a writing project with Oskar Gstrein, a colleague at Campus Fryslan and member of the Data Research Centre, where digital identity is one of our main themes. Oskar presented our paper this week at Goldsmith, London.
In this project, we take a look at several existing concepts that address the division of private and public space, and discuss how these definitions affect the figuration of person(s) in and out of data.[1] We contrast the concept of data subject whose data is being “protected” (the basis of the GDPR) with other approaches, including the German concept of informational self-determination, or the South American “habeas data” doctrine. We explore the tensions between considering the different societal and cultural traditions from which these concepts arise, the conceptualization of privacy as a universal right, the (seemingly?) global nature of digital platforms,[2] and the perennial vision of the digital as a universal space of data.
These considerations lead us to reflect on the mutual adjustments that are ongoing: as we move in/out of data and as the digital becomes an inherent part of our identity, we both change our understanding of person to be able to effectively address privacy, and adjust our concept of privacy to address the concept of personhood.
To begin to map out these relations, we connect our analysis of forms of privacy to specific instances of datafication, so that particular instances ‘stand in’ as exemplars of different approaches and of how legal frameworks and personhood intersect.
[1] Hildebrandt, Privacy as Protection of the Incomputable Self: From Agnostic to Agonistic Machine Learning, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Volume 20, Issue 1, Pages 83–121, doi: 10.1515/til-2019-0004.
[2] Martel, Smart – Enquête sur les Internets, Stock 2014.
