Lygia Romanach

Segmentation studies provide insights to better understanding attitudes towards science and technology

Values-based studies of peoples attitudes towards science and technology not only provide great insights into what drives different attitudes to issues like climate change and genetically modified foods, but allow for segmenting the general public by homogeneous values. Such segmentations both provide better predictions of peoples attitudes to new technologies or contentious science issues than age, sex, or other standard demographics, and allow a better matching of different messages with different community values.

An Application of Social Science to Inform the Stakeholder Engagement of an Emerging Geothermal Industry in Australia

At the peak of geothermal energy development in Australia, government policy suggested geothermal energy would be a greater part of Australia’s energy supply. As the geothermal industry emerged, social scientists at Australia’s national science agency conducted a series of studies to explore perceptions of this industry. This chapter outlines the history and potential of the geothermal resource in Australia, the rationale and main findings of three social science studies conducted and their implications for building the industry’s capacity for stakeholder engagement. Specifically, the three studies identified: (1) the industry’s perspective of its social licence; (2) the representation of the technology in the news media; and (3) community perceptions. While the Australian geothermal industry has stalled due to economic and technical challenges, the social science studies presented in this chapter offer relevant insights for other emerging geothermal or energy industries, globally.