Professor Patrick Devine-Wright (He/his)

About me:

Patrick Devine-Wright is Director of the £6.25m ACCESS (Advancing Capacity in Climate and Environment Social Science) leadership team for environmental social science funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Until 2027, ACCESS will work to increase the co-ordination and visibility of social science research through outreach and close relationships with stakeholders and policy makers across the UK and internationally.

His research has been ranked in the world's top 1% of social science according to citation of publications in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. With expertise spanning Human Geography and Environmental Psychology, he conducts theoretically-driven research with real-world implications, often in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary settings. Active across local, national and international contexts, he is engaged in efforts to ensure social science insights inform decision making on a range of environmental challenges, notably climate change.

Broad research specialisms:

• investigating social and psychological aspects of energy transitions, in particular siting controversies, 'NIMBYism’, public participation and community engagement.
• understanding people's relationships with place and landscape, particularly concepts of place attachment and place identity.
• understanding how the public are imagined and engaged with by policy makers and industry in relation to energy and environmental problems - for example as users, consumers and citizens.

He was a Lead Author for the IPCC Working Group III in the 6th Asessment Round contributing to a chapter on 'Demand, Services and Social Aspects of Mitigation'. From 2019-2022, he was Chair of the Devon Net Zero Task Force and has been a Board Member, including Chair for one year, of Exeter Community Energy. He contributes to the International Energy Agency's Task 28 on Social Acceptance of Wind Energy, has been a member of the National Advisory Group for EirGrid (the Irish electricity grid operator) since 2013 and advises the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland on the Irish Government's Renewable Energy Strategy.

He is a member of the Peer Review Group for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy; and was formerly a member of the Social Science Expert Panel advising Defra and DECC. He was an invited member of the National Advisory Group steering the UK Community Renewables Initiative between 2001 and 2006; and acted as Lead Expert to the Office of Science and Technology’s Foresight Project on Sustainable Energy and the Built Environment (2008).

He sits on the board of several academic journals including Global Environmental Change, Energy Research and Social Science, the Journal of Environmental Psychology, and Environment and Behavior. He edited a book on ‘Public Engagement with Renewable Energy: From NIMBY to Participation' published by Earthscan in 2011. A book on 'Place Attachment', co-edited with Prof. Lynne Manzo (University of Washington) won the annual Achievement Award from the US Environmental Design Research Association in 2014, with an updated second edition published in 2021.

Institutional memberships

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

Chartered Environmental Psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society

International Association for People-Environment Studies

Visiting Professor, Trinity College, Dublin

Honorary Lecturer, University of Liverpool

Qualifications:

BSc Psychology (Trinity College, Dublin),
MSc in Environmental Psychology (Surrey),
PhD in Social Psychology (Surrey)