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Short abstract:

Based on experiences from a co-creative research project we reflect on how the shift in the positionality of STS researchers in participatory projects reverses the role of the researcher and the researched. We suggest that we need to render STS knowledge actionable to truly participate.

Long abstract:

As the emergence of community and farm-owned wind and solar energy has shown, green energy transitions can offer an opportunity for the creation of new income streams for rural areas if a supportive regulatory environment exists. Building on this partial historical success, we have explored through research with potential stakeholders in the North-East of Scotland (UK) whether decentralised green hydrogen production, storage, and distribution could contribute to a more social and ecological creation of a regional hydrogen market. This paper reports on our attempt to intensify the social potential of green hydrogen production by connecting the hydrogen farm project “HydroGlen” to the highly successful community energy project of the Huntly Development Trust. Together with a workshop facilitator from Tripod Training, we planned a system-building workshop on the back of a series of interviews to bring the different stakeholders and their perspectives together, seeking to lay the foundations for a cooperative approach to producing, using, and transporting decentralised green hydrogen. Based on our research, we suggest that the co-creation of green energy transitions requires the integration of a multiplicity of future imaginaries, expectations, and practices, creating a new ethical responsibility for researchers to make decisions that centrally influence the shape and form of an only emerging network. The perspective that STS research can provide in the "age of participation" is therefore one in which the traditional responsibilities of the researcher and the researched are reversed and in which earlier empirical research findings need to be translated back into actionable knowledge.