Matthew Hannon

Matthew works as Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde’s Business School. His research examines the policy and market conditions necessary to accelerate low-carbon energy technology and business model innovation, with a special focus on offshore and local renewable energy. 

He has an excellent research track record, having published in ‘Financial Times 50’ ranked journals such as Research Policy and received a best-paper award at the 2016 World Energy Congress in Istanbul. He is a Co-Investigator for UKRI’s £8m Energy Revolution Research Consortium on smart, locally led energy systems and the UK Energy Research Centre’s community energy finance project. He is a visiting researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy of Imperial College London, a Council member of the British Institute for Energy Economics and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

His work has enjoyed media coverage, most notably a major report on the effectiveness of UK wave energy innovation policy, titled 'Lost at sea of a new wave of innovation?', which was covered by the BBC, Scotsman and National. From this he has written commentaries for national newspapers, such as 'The right idea at the wrong time: What really went wrong with the Saltire Prize' for the 'i' paper.

He has extensive experience of generating lasting impact from his research across the energy sector, providing expert advice to government departments, energy regulators, innovation bodies, international charities and trade unions on a energy policy issues, as well as acting as lead author for the World Energy Council’s World Energy Resources 2016 chapter on marine energy. Matthew also leads on commercialisation programmes through the Scottish Power – Iberdrola Entrepreneurial Energy Challenge, which supports students to translate bright ideas into innovations that shape the future energy system.

Prior to joining Strathclyde he worked at Imperial College’s Centre for Environmental Policy (2012-2016) examining the effectiveness of energy innovation policies both in the UK and overseas (e.g. China, Finland). He completed his PhD at the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) at the University of Leeds (2009-2012), examining the role that business model innovation plays in driving a low-carbon energy transition.

Projects:

• Co-Investigator for the UKRI £8m Energy Revolution Research Consortium to support a smart, locally led energy system. Co-I for work packages on: (1) business and finance; and (2) policy and regulation (commenced Dec 2018)
• Co-Investigator for the Centre for Energy Systems Integration funded project on Interdisciplinary research for energy systems integration: understanding and promoting good practice (commenced Jan 2019)
• Co-Investigator on UK Energy Research Centre funded Community Energy Finance project (commenced 2017). Lead on community energy case studies work package.
• Co-Investigator on Political hyping of new energy technologies project to explore how parliamentary processes fuel or deflate expectations surrounging low-carbon technology innovations. We focus in particular on tipping-points between political support or opposition to new technologies.

PhD supervision:

• Horacio Gonzalez - Scaling up Scotland’s emerging low-carbon energy industry (commenced 2018)
• Rui Hu - The Chinese innovation system for wind energy: structure, functions and performance (completed 2017)