Basia Cieszewska

About me:

I am currently a PhD researcher funded by the ESRC South West Doctoral Training Partnership. Mitigating climate change and achieving net zero requires radical and transformative action in a short timeframe with no prior precedents for a systemic transformation at this scale and speed. I am interested in how transitions can be accelerated, while taking into account that fundamentally this is a social and not just a technological or economic transformation. My research will explore how acceleration of transitions is enabled or constrained by focusing on the challenges of retrofitting UK homes. Current climate change targets will not be met without the near-complete decarbonisation of the housing stock, while achieving it also offers numerous societal benefits. The research is supervised by Dr Catherine Butler (University of Exeter), Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh (University of Bath) and Dr Iain Soutar (University of Exeter).

Between 2019 - 2021 I worked as Professor Catherine Mitchell’s Research Assistant, supporting her in her role as Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 13 in the IPCC Working Group 3’s (Mitigation of Climate Change) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). I am also a Chapter Scientist for Chapter 13 ‘National and Sub-national Policies and Institutions’ of this IPCC AR6 report, as well as one of the chapter’s Contributing Authors.

I joined the University of Exeter and its Energy Policy Group in 2018 as a Research Assistant working on a UK Energy Research Centre funded project led by Dr Jess Britton examining gender balance in the UK energy research portfolio.

Prior to joining the Energy Policy Group I worked in the third sector as an Energy Adviser, helping people affected by fuel poverty.

MRes Sustainable Futures

MSc International Development

BSc International Relations