Professor Ed Brown

PhD (Edinburgh)

  • Joint Director of the Loughborough Centre for Sustainable Transitions: Energy, Environment and Resilience (STEER)
  • Professor of Global Energy Challenges

Academic Career

  • 2018-onwards: Professor of Global Energy Challenges
  • 2009-2014: Associate Director, Sustainability Research School, Loughborough University
  • 2008-2018: Senior Lecturer in Human Geography
  • 1991-2007: Lecturer in Human Geography, Loughborough University

Professional Responsibilities

Ed's broad research interests lie in the fields of governance and international development issues with recent research outputs focusing particularly upon energy access and low carbon energy transitions in the Global South. Ed’s early career was strongly focused on the Central American region where he explored the political economy of state reforms as well as the broader impacts of neoliberal globalization. More recently most of his work has been based in a variety of African and Asian contexts.

He is the Director of the multi-million FCDO-funded Modern Energy Cooking Services programme which is leading the accelerated scaling of a major new approach towards tackling the global clean cooking challenge. He is also Deputy Director of the other major FCDO-funded programme being led by LU’s STEER Centre, the Climate Compatible Growth programme. He is the Co-Chair of the Coordinating Committee overseeing the new Kenyan National Clean Cooking Strategy which is being supported by MECS, UKPACT, GIZ and AFD and also leads the LU involvement in the SETA project which provides technical support to the Ministry of Energy, County Governments and other organisations working in the Kenyan energy sector. Ed is also the Co-Coordinator of the UK Low Carbon Energy for Development Network which aims to build bridges between the divergent branches of academia working on energy and international development issues and the wider sustainable energy access community.

My teaching examines globalization and international development issues with a particular focus on energy access issues.

Current Postgraduate Research Students

  • Steyn Hoodakker: Democratising the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Sustainable Energy Technologies in Informal Settlements

Recent Postgraduate Research Students

  • Anthony Perrett (2021): Sustainable Energy & Poverty Reduction: The role of clean energy technologies in promoting income-generating activities in low-income settlements
  • Richard Sieff (2020): Governing Off-Grid Energy Provision: exploring the role of local governance in energy transitions in the Global South.
  • Francisco Castaneda (2014): Global production Networks and Small and Medium Enterprises: A Public Policy Perspective on the Chilean Agrofood Sector.
  • Danielle Gent (2013): Exploring the adoption of photovoltaic technologies: the case of rural Central America.
  • Norah Penawou (2013): Multi faceted impacts of oil exploration on children a case study based on the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria.
  • Valeria Pecorelli (2012): Autonomous social movements practising constructive resistance: Ya Basta and solidarity trade in Milan.
  • Benjamin Iremiren (2011): Governance, Corruption and Economic development: Reflections on corruption and anti-corruption initiatives in Nigeria.
  • Xiomara Araujo Salas (2010): Decentralization in Venezuela and Citizen participation in Local Government: the case of Local councils for public planning and the communal councils.
  • Tom Mais (2009): Transforming Development? The millennium challenge account and US- Nicaraguan relations.
  • Alberto Cortes Ramos (2009): The production of Migratory transnational space: The case of seasonal rural migration from Nicaragua to Cost Rica 1990- 2003.

Selected Publications