Siddharth Sareen

The Nils Klim Committee Citation

The Nils Klim Committee recommends that Siddharth Sareen receive the 2024 Nils Klim Prize.

Siddharth Sareen is Professor of Energy and Environment in the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger in Norway. He also holds a position as Professor II at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen.

In 2016, Sareen completed a double PhD degree in development studies at the University of Copenhagen and in forest and nature management at the University of Padua. He then went on to work as a visiting scholar and research fellow in the US, the UK, Norway, India, and Germany, strengthening his engagement with an array of research topics. In his more recent scholarly capacity at the Universities of Bergen and Stavanger, he has expanded his international reach and academic liaisons, in accord with the global and collaborative nature of his study areas.

In the course of his remarkable career, building on an interdisciplinary basis where the social sciences and humanities cross paths with technological as well as environmental sciences and challenges, Siddharth Sareen has established himself as a creative researcher and academic supervisor. He directs the Sustainability Transformation programme area at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Stavanger which has links to partner institutions both in Norway and abroad. His publishing record is highly impressive, especially given the range of his research topics, broadly covering governance of energy transitions of varying scales and in different environments. These topics involve the intricacies of sustainability and accountability, energy history, environmental justice, urban and non-urban geography, democratic grounding, and social inclusion.

Professor Sareen’s versatility and broad perspective are also reflected in how he pursues his projects, sometimes as a single researcher and author, but often as a member of a team, numbering from two to thirty-six. The latter is the case in an article, published in the journal Energy Research and Social Science in 2022, under the heading “Beyond technology: A research agenda for social sciences and humanities research on renewable energy in Europe”. This title is distinctive for Sareen’s academic pursuits, with the notable exception that his research also extends to sites beyond Europe. His work is exemplary for the global importance of critical and interactive relationships between fields of scholarship, technology, and industry in the vital search for renewable and sustainable sources of energy.

For all the reasons stated, Siddarth Sareen is a most worthy recipient of the 2024 Nils Klim Prize.

On behalf of the Nils Klim Committee,
Ástráður Eysteinsson, Chair