ACCESS contributes to new DESNZ public participation plan
Published on 11 December 2025
Members of the ACCESS Leadership Team played a significant role in shaping development of the UK Government’s new climate and nature public participation plan.
The Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) has published the UK Government’s climate and nature public participation plan: Energising Britain.
Professors Patrick Devine-Wright, Karen Bickerstaff, Lorraine Whitmarsh (ACCESS Leadership Team) and Nigel Gilbert (ACCESS Co-Investigator) contributed to the plan through roundtable sessions organised by DESNZ and the British Academy this year, as did Professor Nick Pidgeon of Cardiff University – an ACCESS Project Partner.
The plan sets out how government will work with businesses and communities to ensure everyone can benefit from its Clean Energy Superpower Mission, including through climate and nature policies that are responsive to people’s needs and views.
Patrick says:
“This plan shows a welcome recognition of the value of social science in informing policy on energy system change. It recognises the important role played by organisations such as the British Academy and the Government Office for Science in enabling in-depth discussion of social science insights between academics, politicians, civil servants and scientific advisors.
Members of the ACCESS Leadership Team – including Karen Bickerstaff, Lorraine Whitmarsh and Patrick Devine-Wright – played a significant role in shaping development of this plan, participating in round tables, sharing insights and submitting evidence from our Net Zero Task Force. While noting a lack of detail concerning evaluation of the Plan, in ACCESS we look forward to continued engagement with Government to ensure these commitments to listen and collaborate endure over the coming decades, well beyond the 2030 milestone”.
Karen says:
“It’s great to see the publication of this climate and nature public participation plan, having been part of the BA/DESNZ social science roundtables that fed into the approach. It’s really encouraging to see commitments from government both to place-based collaboration and to working with social scientists to deliver ‘policy design that is better and fairer’. These areas of priority speak very much to the findings of the ACCESS Net Zero Task Force and I, and I am sure other members of the Task Force, look forward to following progress in the delivery of the plan.”