Photovoltaic Imagination: Solar Strategies for Community Integrated Research-Creation and Graduate Training

The Edinburgh-UofT project addresses a perceived need to develop better training for PhD students enrolled in programmes that address complex societal challenges, predicated on a need for interdisciplinary approaches to the student’s subject of inquiry. In our view, any contemporary study of complex challenges like SDGs requires researchers (in training) to reconsider their approaches to the subject, and engagement with communities already addressing these concerns locally.
The core of the project involves an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional workshop series focused on the design, development, and dissemination of ‘solar strategies’. At these events social imaginaries and technical infrastructures regarding SDG 7 will be shared, explored, and debated using methods and practices drawn from art, design, and engineering fields.