On 16 May 2025, the Institute of Social Sciences (IFSOL) hosted the kick-off workshop of a new bilateral research project with the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. The project entitled "Couplings between digitalisation and sustainable energy transitions" was jointly funded by Ricarda Schmidt-Scheele (IFSOL, Oldenburg) and Paul Upham (IREES, Groningen) and is jointly funded by both universities as part of the UOL | RUG cooperation programme.

The workshop was attended by Paul Upham and Xin Sun from the Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen (IREES) as well as Tamara Schnell, Jannika Mattes and Ricarda Schmidt-Scheele from the Institute of Social Sciences in Oldenburg. The aim of the meeting was to lay the foundations for collaboration: The researchers got to know each other and their research focuses and jointly developed initial ideas for future research projects and joint publications.

Two further workshops are planned in Groningen and Oldenburg. The co-operation is intended to make conceptual and empirical contributions to the still young research field of digitalisation in sustainable energy transitions - including through a joint scientific publication.