Academic interests
Dr. Merethe Dotterud Leiren is a political scientist, specialising in climate and energy policy at the EU and national level. Her research focus is in the area of governance and legitimacy, where she is particularly interested in issues that arise in connection with the transition.
More specifically, her focus is concerned with the authorities' ability to govern in the transition to a low emission society, given increasing complexity ad time pressure, lack of coordination, global conflicts and the energy challenges in Europe.
Her research looks at the effects of the EU's climate and energy policy i EU member states and non-member states. Questions she addresses include the implications of the EU's Green Deal, evolving into the Clean Industrial Deal, on Norway and how these consequences differ to those of EU member states.
She is also particularly interested in the introduction of new technologies. Leiren has contributed with solutions that can balance various environmental, social and economic considerations, focusing on the development of wind power in Norway.
She is a well known speaker in these fields, speaking at national and global events and in high-level dialogue meetings.
Leiren's expertise in qualitative methods, comparative work and institutional theory to explain the development of climate and energy policies has - in cooperation with researchers from related fields - allowed her to deliver key projects such as those funded by the Research Council of Norway and pan-European projects such as the EU H2020.
Background
Leiren holds a part time position as Research Professor at ARENA. She is a Research Professor and leading the Climate Policy Group at CICERO Center for International Climate Research. Previously, she was a senior researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics, hence has a background in transport research. Leiren has been a PhD research fellow at the University of Agder (Norway) and has served as a visiting researcher at the Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany). She has a MA from the University of Michigan (USA) and has studied at the University of Freiburg (Germany). The government appointed her a member of the Norwegian Commission for Norwegian Air Transport. She has been a member of the evaluation panel for the Academy of Finland's JUST ENERGY call and the Swedish Energy Agency's call for research within the programme Human, Energy Systems and Society. She served as an expert in the mid-term evaluation of the Swedish research programme on climate.