by Valentina Bosetti. This newsletter marks half the lifetime of the ICARUS Project. In the past months we reached some important milestones with respect to data collection and analysis, expert elicitation, and modelling innovation and technology transfer. Read more about the overall status of the project, or dive directly into your specific area of interest below...

The ICARUS team works on characterising and reducing the uncertainty concerning the outcome of current and future innovation dynamics by carrying out comprehensive experts' elicitation: so far more than 90 experts have been interviewed... [read more]

by V. Bosetti. The future role of nuclear energy is a key factor in determining a long-term energy strategy to cope with the challenges ahead: quenching the energy thirst of a growing planet; providing universal access to modern sources of energy; assuring energy security and availability at reasonable costs; facing the threat of climate change... [read more or Read the report ]

by V.Bosetti, M.Catenacci, G.Fiorese, E.Verdolini. PV and CSP technologies represent a concrete and promising solution to reduce the dependence from fossil sources, and therefore to meet climate change policy targets while ensuring reliable energy supply. The ICARUS team interviewed 16 leading experts who gave their insights on the important barriers still hindering the commercial success of solar technologies. [Read the report ]

One major area of focus of the ICARUS project is the creation of an unprecedented database of energy- and climate-related R&D, patent data and investment data. [read more]

by Elena Verdolini. To take stock of previous literature, improve data availability and foster research on innovation and transfer dynamics in green technologies, the ICARUS team and the International Center for Climate Governance, in collaboration with the OECD, Tilburg University and the Centro Euro-Mediterraneo per i Cambiamenti Climatici, organized a two day workshop in the topic of patent data and the recent developments in empirical resarch.  [read more]

by Ivan Hašcic. The new tagging scheme developed by the EPO to identify "green" patents greatly facilitates identification of relevant climate-related inventions, and its careful application will no doubt enhance our understanding of environmental innovation. Initially available only through EPO's public search engine espacenet, the tags are now included also in its PATSTAT database.  [read more]

The final aim of the ICARUS project is to develop a framework that can guide policy makers when deciding on climate-related innovation, while accounting for the crucial fact that innovation is an uncertain process. [read more]

by Valentina Bosetti, Understanding the mechanism of technology diffusion, for its important repercussions on development, is a tremendously important task. In particular, the transfer of new, more efficient and less polluting ways of producing energy is providential in many ways: it can reduce energy poverty, alleviate local pollution and lower the cost of transitioning towards a low carbon society. [read more]