How can arts, humanities and the social sciences strengthen geoenergy research? A roadmap to building a positive research culture

The future of geoenergy, as recently outlined by Gluyas and Fowler in their 2024 Geoenergy article (https://doi.org/10.1144/geoenergy2023-058), is driven by a need to transition to low-carbon energy technologies. Such a transition is closely intertwined with society; that is, individual consumers, households, communities, companies, non-governmental organizations, policymakers and other agents will be affected by and respond to changes in energy systems. We believe that it is imperative for the field of geoenergy to also study human, social and cultural aspects of geoenergy; areas that are usually covered by the arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS). Despite an abundance of literature on the integration of AHSS disciplines in the field of (geo)energy, it often remains difficult to achieve its full potential in supporting the decarbonization of energy systems to benefit society. We argue that successful AHSS–geoenergy integration starts at research centres such as the Research Ireland Centre for Applied Geosciences (iCRAG), which provides research collaboration on a meso level. To achieve successful AHSS–geoenergy integration, we developed a roadmap based on the development of a positive research culture. We illustrate this with successful examples of AHSS–geoenergy integrated projects.