Dr Philippa Calver

Philippa is an interdisciplinary researcher and educator. She is passionate about supporting individuals to become leaders of change, and is experienced in facilitating and delivering sustainability education. Philippa is part of the core MSc Sustainability teaching team within the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI).

[email protected]

View Philippa's ORCID profile

Background

Philippa’s research aims to uncover constraints in the lives of individuals and groups that affect their ability and capacity to participate in systems linked to the sustainability transition and transformation. Philippa is particularly interested in how potential users are imagined, and their influence on system and policy design.

Philippa’s undergraduate teaching focuses on exploring the future, and the role of different individuals in creating this future. She runs a Ruskin Module called ‘What if imagination could save the world’. This sees students across different disciplines, in their second year at ARU, create a future utopia using the tools of co-creation and interdisciplinarity. She then asks students to reflect on positionality and diversity, and how these may have influenced their vision development.

Philippa’s post-grad teaching sees her provide module support across the MSc Sustainability, including module planning, session delivery, and workshop provision. In addition, she provides MSc project supervision and tutoring.

Philippa has a mixed methods PhD with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester in Electrical Power Networks. Through this, using a justice framing, Philippa explored the planned roll-out of low-carbon technologies and new market mechanisms within the UK energy system.

She is engaged with a number of pedagogical networks across the institution and feeds into the ARU’s Education for Sustainability work.

Research interests

• Energy justice
• Policy analysis
• Qualitative research
• Interdisciplinarity
• Sustainability education
• Coaching and leadership

Teaching

• MSc Sustainability

Qualifications

• PhD in Engineering, University of Manchester
• MA Leadership for Sustainable Development, Forum for the Future
• PG Cert Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Keele University
• PG Cert Power Systems, University of Manchester
• BSc Environmental Management, University of Birmingham

Selected recent publications

Calver, P., Mander, S., Abi Ghanem, D., 2022. Low carbon system innovation through an energy justice lens: Exploring domestic heat pump adoption with direct load control in the United Kingdom. Energy Research & Social Science, 83. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2021.102299

Crawley, J., Johnson, C., Calver, P., Fell, M., 2021. Demand response beyond the numbers: A critical reappraisal of flexibility in two United Kingdom field trials. Energy Research & Social Science, 75. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2021.102032

Robinson, R., Catney, P., Calver, P., Peacock, A., 2021. Universities as Living Labs for Climate Praxis. In: Howarth, C., Lane, M., Slevin, A. (Eds), 2021. Addressing the Climate Crisis, Local action in theory and practice (Cham: Palgave Macmillan).

Calver, P., Simcock, N. (2021) Demand response and energy justice: A critical overview of ethical risks and opportunities within digital, decentralised, and decarbonised futures. Energy Policy, 151, doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112198