Research Institute for Sustainability Helmholtz Centre Potsdam

(c) Agata Stasik

Prof. Dr. Agata Stasik

Fellow

E-Mail

agata [dot] stasik [at] rifs-potsdam [dot] de

Dr. Agata Stasik holds a degree in sociology and has also pursued studies in science and technology. Her research focuses on the social dimension of energy technologies and sustainability transitions, ranging from shale gas development and renewable energy communities to new energy technologies in coal transitioning regions. As part of this work, she is studying the development and diffusion socio-technological innovations through processes of collective experimentation. Dr. Stasik is an assistant professor at Kozminski University in Warsaw, where she is Co-director of the Centre for Reimagining Sustainability in Management and Finance. She has supervised and participated in numerous national and international research projects involving close collaboration with colleagues from diverse disciplines and practitioners from business and public administration in city labs and co-creative activities.

Employment and education:

  • 2014-today: Assistant Professor, Department of Management in Networked and Digital Societies, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland

  • 2009-2014: Ph.D. studies in Sociology, University of Warsaw, Institute of Sociology Dissertation: "Risk and Uncertainty Assessment of New Technologies as a Challenge for Democracy: Controversies Around Shale Gas Production in Poland" - cum laude.

Selected research projects:

  • 2021-24: Green Heat - Toward collaborative local decarbonization. Research grant of IdeaLab: Cities for the Future: Services and Solutions, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway Grants; member of the research team. The project aims at the co-creation of tools enabling local participative decision-making in the decarbonization of heating systems: https://greenheat.kezo.pl/en/

  • 2019-22: SOCIAL INNOVATION IN ENERGY TRANSITIONS (SONNET): Co-creating a rich understanding of the diversity, processes, contributions, success, and future potential of social innovation in the energy sector. Horizon 2020 project; researcher; Lead of the Work Package on "City Labs in urban area," consisting of urban experiments with social innovation in energy in six European cities; https://sonnet-energy.eu/.

  • 2019-2024: Grassroots socio-technological innovation in the energy sector: the case of energy clusters in Poland. Research grant of the National Science Centre, principal investigator. The project contributes to the discussion on grassroots innovations, providing an in-depth analysis of Polish energy clusters: diverse, locally emerging initiatives that aim at local generation and distribution of energy from various renewable sources.

  • 2015-17: Dynamics of technological and business innovation in crowdfunded projects in energy technologies. Research grant of the Polish National Centre of Research, principal investigator. The project analysed the role of crowdfunding in technological and business innovation in the energy sector.

  • Sustainable energy transition
  • Resilience
  • Coal transitioning regions
  • Collective experimentation
  • Social & technological innovation
  • Future studies
  • Energy communities
  • Transdisciplinary research & methods

Publications prior to joining the RIFS

  • Sovacool, B.K., Brugger, H., Brunzema, I. et al. Social innovation supports inclusive and accelerated energy transitions with appropriate governance. Commun Earth Environ 4, 289 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00952-w
  • Avelino, Flor, Marta de Geus Tessa Hielscher Sabine Strumińska-Kutra, Linda Widdel, Julia Wittmayer, Alicja Dańkowska, Agata Dembek, Maria Fraaije, et al. (2023) "Power to, over and with: Exploring the Transformative Power of Social Innovations in Energy Transitions across Europe." Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2023.100758.
  • Iskandarova, M., A. Dembek, M. Fraaije, W. Matthews, A. Stasik, J.M. Wittmayer, B. Sovacool, (2021) "Who finances renewable energy in Europe? Examining temporality, authority and contestation in solar and wind subsidies in Poland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom," Energy Strategy Reviews, (38, November 2021): 100730 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2021.100730
  • Stasik A., D. Jemielniak (2021) "Public involvement in risk governance in the internet era: impact of new rules of building trust and credibility," Journal of Risk Research, DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2020.1864008
  • Wittmayer, J. M., Geus, B. Pela, F. Avelino, S. Hielscher, T., S. Mühlemeier, A. Stasik, S. Oxenaar, K.S. Rogge, V. Visser, E. Marín-González, M. Ooms, S. Buitelaar, Ch. Fouls, K. Petrick, S. Klarwein, S. Krupnik, G. deVries, A. Wagner, A. Härtwig (2000) "Beyond instrumentalism: Broadening the understanding of social innovation in socio-technical energy systems" Energy Research & Social Science (70, December 2020): 101689
  • Stasik A. (2019) "Współwytwarzanie wiedzy o technologii. Gaz łupkowy jako wyzwanie dla zbiorowości" [Co-production of knowledge on the technology. Shale gas as the challenge for the collective]. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika.
  • Stasik, A. (2018) "Global Controversies in Local Settings: Anti-Fracking Activism in the Era of Web 2.0." Journal of Risk Research 21 (12): 1562-78. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2017.1313759.

  • 2021-2023 POSTDOC ACADEMY FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP - participant in a two-year joint project of the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the four academic centres: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) in Rotterdam
  • 2019 Award of the Ministry for Science and Higher Education for outstanding early-career researchers
  • 2019 Award of the Foundation for Polish Science in "Monografie" (Monographs) contest for a book based on a Ph.D. dissertation