How to? Co-productionist relational engagement in European Union energy projects

Public engagement is key in sustainable energy transitions. Engagement with energy often takes place in European Union energy projects, which is repeatedly criticized for not living to its potential to grapple with social issues. Work on co-productionist relational engagement by Science and Technology Studies (STS) can help to overcome this critique with a more reflexive perspective. In this paper we explore how relational engagement can be brought into practice in the contexts of EU energy projects. We underline the need to consider contexts of engagement when aiming to operationalise relational engagement. We make a novel connection between STS engagement literature and project management literature, and combine this with empirical insights from EU H2020 energy projects. We identify three components for enacting relational engagement in EU energy projects. First, practicing, entails reflecting and responding upon the way engagement evolves. Second, enabling, means that projects should enable relational reflections and responses with flexibility for engagement. Third, engagement in the flexible spaces needs to be steered through indicators and engagement practitioners' skills. This shows that relational reflections and responses are bounded by the EU energy project contexts through levels of flexibility, indicators and skills. Nevertheless, we see opportunities to work with and within the boundaries to bring relational engagement into practice. We emphasize that rather than understanding relational engagement in practice as an all-or-nothing issue, opportunities for practicing relational engagement can be embraced to foster relational engagement that reflexively opens up more diversified engagement to addresses societal challenges for inclusive energy transitions.