Building physics into the social: Enhancing the policy impact of energy studies and energy social science research

A diagnosis for why the social sciences have limited impact on energy policy-making is proposed, and the outline of a remedy presented. The diagnosis identifies the limited use physical science in social studies of energy as a major cause of this lack of impact. This is illustrated by a qualitative review of studies in psychological and sociological approaches and by a quantitative content analysis of all the articles published in Energy Research and Social Science to July 2016. Only around one in ten papers make any meaningful reference to common physical units for energy analysis, with nearly three-quarters making no reference at all to any of these units, in contrast to the pattern observed in the journal Energy Policy. This is important because while it is possible to make realistic but problematic energy policy with only physical and technical data it is not possible to make realistic energy policy with only social data. To bring more physics into social science of energy without the latter simply serving the framework of the former demands a new socio-technical approach to the study of energy. A potential vision for this approach is set out in order to stimulate wider debate in the academy.