Rebecca Willis is a Professor in Energy & Climate Governance at the University of Manchester, where she leads the Climate Citizens research group, examining the role of public engagement in energy and climate governance. She holds a UKRI Research Fellowship, and is Co-Investigator of the Energy Demand Research Centre, JUST: the Centre for Joined-Up Sustainability Transformations, and PACT (Production and Consumption Transformations).

Current and recent advisory roles include Expert Adviser to the Climate Change Committee, Innovate UK’s Net Zero Living Initiative, and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). In 2019-2020, she was an Expert Lead to Climate Assembly UK, the first national Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change, established by six parliamentary select committees in the House of Commons.

Rebecca features on the Woman’s Hour Our Planet Power List which highlights 30 women making an impact by helping to protect our planet. Her book, Too Hot To Handle? The democratic challenge of climate change was published by Bristol University Press in March 2020.

Previously, she was a research fellow for the IGov project at the University of Exeter, investigating energy governance. From 2015-2019 she was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of UKRI’s Energy Programme, and from 2011-15 she was a Council Member of the Natural Environment Research Council. She was Vice-Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, advising the Prime Minister and First Ministers of the devolved administrations, from 2004-2011. In 2009 Rebecca founded Green Alliance’s Climate Leadership Programme, an initiative to support Members of the UK Parliament, and earlier served as Green Alliance’s Director.

Jake Ainscough is a lecturer in environmental politics at the University of Manchester where is based at the Department of Politics and the Tyndall Centre. His work focuses on questions of citizen participation and democratisation in environmental policy and decision making. He co-leads work on democratic innovation as part of the ESRC funded JUST Centre and is currently a British Academy Innovation Fellow, based out of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. He has previously held research positions at Lancaster University and the University of Cambridge, and spent time working on climate policy for the think tank Policy Connect.

Dr Morley is a Research Fellow in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester. She specialises in the sociology of energy demand, focusing on questions of how demand is made, how it changes and what this means for policies and forms of governance that aim to reduce it. She is currently a Research Co-investigator in the Energy Demand Research Centre funded by UKRI. She has previously led research into thermal comfort practices and clothing, funded as part of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS). She also worked as a Senior Research Associate in the Dynamics of Energy Mobility and Demand (DEMAND) Centre where, amongst other things, her research addressed the implications for energy demand, and demand governance, of changing patterns of information technology use at home.

Dr. Yuille is an interdisciplinary, qualitative social scientist. His research focuses on the relationships between society and environment, in particular how we make public decisions about environmental change, how public participation in decision-making is facilitated or excluded, especially through innovative practices, and how different kinds of knowledge and value are legitimised or marginalised in decision-making processes. These interests build on 15 years’ experience of working with environmental NGOs to inform and shape environmental, planning, transport, housing and economic policy. 

Andy will lead a new project investigating citizen views on energy demand, working with the participation charity Involve to establish and manage a deliberative Citizens’ Panel on Energy Demand Reduction. He will also lead academic research and analysis into the interaction between energy modelling and citizen deliberation,  collaborating with economists and modellers to develop robust models of energy demand which incorporate citizen views and values. This project forms part of a major new Energy Demand Research Centre, a multi-institution collaboration investigating the role of energy demand in achieving climate goals, equity and energy security, and working collaboratively with government, business and the third sector.

Dr Coxcoon is a Senior Research Fellow (0.5FTE) in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, affiliated to the Climate Citizens group.  Rachel is Principal Investigator on the UKERC-funded project ‘Across the Lines’, which deploys quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate public and politicians’ attitudes on the acceptability of new grid infrastructure, alongside an exploration of consultation practices by grid developers.  Rachel’s specific interests are in political ideology and world views, and how these create a lens through which individuals judge the acceptability and fairness of environmental policies. Prior to her current project, Rachel’s PhD research involved a quantitative analysis of politically right-leaning residents’ attitudes to climate assemblies and climate policy in rural England.

In her non-university time, Rachel is Director of Climate Guide, a consultancy providing research services, strategic climate change support, and training to public sector organisations.  Rachel’s career in climate policy began in Bristol, leading the Centre for Sustainable Energy’s work with communities and local government (2010-2021). Rachel was also an elected member for Cotswold District Council, where she was Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Forward Planning, 2019-2023.

Pete is fascinated by the role of democratic innovation in addressing climate change. He is part of the Climate Citizens team alongside his work as a deliberation practitioner. He has designed, managed and facilitated some 15 deliberative processes on climate related issues including the first climate jury in the UK; the Leeds Climate Jury (2019), the Bude Climate Jury on sea level rise (2023), and the Wandsworth Citizens Assembly on Air Quality (2023), with the not-for-profit Shared Future. He has advised and trained those organising such processes in the Maldives, Gambia and Shipley and is especially interested in the role of past participants in pushing for change. Pete is currently supporting members of the Cumbria Climate Assembly in their efforts to make a permanent climate assembly in Cumbria a reality.

Lucy is a deliberative research practitioner with over 15 years experience designing engagement that gives people influence over the decisions that affect them. She has run some of the UK’s largest public engagement programmes on everything from the future of the NHS to self-driving cars. She has a particular interest in evolving deliberative practice, including scaling and mass participation, inclusion, relational practice and creative arts-based methods.

Lucy is currently working as a Senior Research Fellow on the UKERC project ‘Between the Lines’, exploring how publics, politicians and infrastructure developers interact around energy infrastructure siting. She is particularly interested in how participatory cultures are embedded in organisations, groups and individual interactions.

Outside of Climate Citizens Lucy is a Partner at Thinks Insight & Strategy, a research agency, where she leads a team of deliberative research and engagement specialists.

Lía is a 3rd year PhD researcher in the Climate Citizens research group based at Lancaster University and a member of the cross-university Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC). Her work examines how policymaking norms and practices influence the development of policy, especially concerning energy demand reduction measures.

She has previously worked across research and communications in a number of climate policy organisations in the UK and Ireland.

Liam is doing his PhD at Lancaster Environment Centre. He is interested in the relationship between deliberative forums on climate change and the global political economy. His research focuses on formal and informal forums on climate policy across the UK and whether such processes disturb hegemonic forms of common sense.

Prior to joining Climate Citizens, he worked as a fossil fuel divestment researcher with Scientists for Global Responsibility and as a campaigns strategist within the animal rights movement. He holds an MA in International Political Economy from the University of Manchester

Mathilde Rainard is a doctoral student at the University of Leeds and a research associate at the University of Manchester. She is an intersectional and critical eco-feminist scholar, trained in political and social sciences and economics. Her research investigates the justice dimensions of climate change mitigation policies, specifically energy transition policies. Her work focusses on inclusivity and people-centred research to support a democratic transition.

In the past she worked for sustainable businesses and the Secretariat of the UNFCCC as part of their Gender and Action for Climate empowerment teams. Currently, her work focusses on intersectional approaches to the energy transition in the UK context. She is interested in furthering her work on sufficiency and universal basic services with a global intersectional justice lens to ensure a just transition.

Ceri Holman is a Senior Research Associate at the JUST Centre at the University of Manchester. Her research explores situated responses to just, low-carbon living, with a focus on rural and post-industrial contexts. She investigates how community engagement and democratic innovation shape these responses, using creative and participatory methods, including community storytelling, to support dialogue and more inclusive approaches to change.

Ceri holds an MA in Environment and Development from Lancaster University and an MSc in Library and Information Management. She worked in secondary education and contributes to the place-based Morecambe Bay Curriculum as a member of the Secondary Schools Working Group and Steering Group. Her PhD research integrates deliberative democratic approaches into education to support young people engaging with complex environmental and political challenges across local to planetary scales.

Rachael Glassey is a PhD researcher at the Lancaster Environment Centre, also based within the JUST Centre. Her research explores the social and political dimensions of the green transition, focusing on how people experience, interpret, and respond to climate governance in their everyday lives. Using qualitative and relational approaches, she is particularly interested in questions of political disengagement, power, recognition, and participation in post-industrial communities. Her work examines how political orientations are shaped through everyday relationships, institutions, and lived experience, with a focus on creating more context-sensitive and inclusive approaches to climate governance. Rachael holds an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and an Master's in Citizenship and Human Rights: Ethics and Politics.

Lydia takes the authoritative and insightful research from Climate Citizens and ensures it maximises its impact by engaging with key audiences in a way that is accessible and useful for them. 

She has a PhD in Climate Justice from the University of Reading, and works as a freelance researcher and climate engagement consultant.