Pete Barbrook-Johnson

Biography

Pete is a Lecturer in Social Economics at the Department of Arts and Sciences, UCL. He is also a Teaching Associate at the Environmental Change Institute and an Associate Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, both at the University of Oxford, and a member of the Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN).

Pete's research lies between economics and sociology, where he often uses systems thinking and complexity science approaches. The vast majority of his research focuses on energy policy, the energy transition, or environmental policy. He is an expert in systems mapping and agent-based modelling, using these in his applied environmental and energy policy research. He is also interested in policy analysis, evaluation, and the decision frameworks used in policy processes. He also researches the science-policy interface and the use of research in policy.

He teaches on the BASc Arts and Sciences degree, co-leading the final-year 'Knowledge Economy' module, and a new final year module on 'Rethinking Capitalism' with a strong sustainability and systems streak. He also leads an elective master's module at Oxford, 'Complexity and Systems Thinking for the Environment'. He regularly guest lectures at UCL and Oxford and has extensive teaching experience at UCL, Oxford, Surrey and Westminster focussing on economics, sustainability, policy analysis, and the use of complexity and systems thinking. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority. Pete is the Graduate Research Tutor in the Department of Arts and Sciences and supervises 7 PhD students, with two PhD completions. He is also Personal Academic Tutor for nearly 30 BASc students.

In 2022, Pete published a highly influential book on systems mapping, 'Systems Mapping: how to build and use causal models of systems', through Palgrave. He has published over 30 journal articles, in journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, Environmental Research Letters, Nature Reviews Clean Technology, Climate Policy, the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Energy Research and Social Science, Sustainability Science, the International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Evaluation, and the Annals of Tourism Research. He sits on the editorial board of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications and the International Journal of Social Research Methodology.

Pete has been a principal investigator or co-investigator on many projects, winning over £2.5m in research funding, including a 3-year UKRI fellowship, UKRI projects, and funding from UK government, philanthropic foundations, and businesses. He is the leader of the Entangled Environments group at UCL, co-leader of the Oxford Systems Thinking Hub, a core member of CECAN, and was previously Deputy Director of the NERC-funded Agile Initiative and the modelling lead of the UK government funded EEIST project.

You can visit Pete's personal website at www.barbrookjohnson.com