What we do

The GSI policy network of scientists and decision makers in public policy, the private sector and civil society aims to facilitate the better use of science in making robust and resilience policy choices How we make good public policy and business decisions is increasingly reliant on scientific information. But there is often a disconnect between the people generating scientific evidence and analysis relevant for decision-making, and the decision-makers. The GSI Policy Network aims to transform the science-policy interface to ensure better policy decisions are made by making best use of scientific and technical analysis.

Founding GSI Policy Network Members:

Jean-Francois Mercure

Policy Network Lead

Jean-Francois Mercure is GSI Assistant Director for policy impact and senior lecturer in Global Systems, Department of Geography. His research focuses on providing evidence bases for public policy-making in the area of climate change, energy and innovation policy. His activities involve developing and apply quantitative models to simulate the evolution of the coupled global economy, energy system and environment. He also analyses the functioning of the science-policy interface and ways to improve the structure and flow of information in evidence-based public policy-making. He is the leader in the development of the Risk-Opportunity Analysis framework. Lastly, he is the coordinator of the BEIS and CIFF-funded project ‘Economics of Energy Innovation and System Transition’ (EEIST, see www.eeist.co.uk), which seeks to revolutionise the use of models and evidence on energy innovation in decision-making in China, India, Brazil, the EU and the UK.

Dr Femke Nijsse

Policy Network Co-Ordinator, UK government partners

Dr Femke Nijsse is an energy modeller with an interest in complexity science. She is a postdoctoral research fellow with the EEIST project working with Jean-Francois Mercure. The project focusses on the energy transition in China, Brazil, and India, as well as the UK and the EU and specific questions are informed by policy makers from these countries. She works on improving the model representation of flexibility and energy storage to gain a better understanding of the diffusion of high shares of variable

Dr Yeliz Simsek

Policy Network Co-Ordinator, EU partners

Dr Yeliz Simsek is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, in the Geography Department within the Global Systems Institute.
She studied BSc Engineering, MSc Energy Science and Technology and PhD Energy and Environmental Modelling.

Currently, she is working on macroeconomic, energy and environmental modelling to contribute several projects including the European Commission and the UK government.

She is providing quantitative research capacity in the NAVIGATE project (this project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 821124) and contribute to projects as part of the Earth League.

Jack Oliver

Policy Network Co-Ordinator, Finance sector partners

A former Financial Services (FS) Executive with extensive experience of strategic development and business management activities across Retail, Commercial, Wealth Management and Private Banking. I connect FS firms to the Global Systems Institute to facilitate the translation and application of climate science to improve the resilience and growth prospects of the FS industry. I help partner firms draw upon the wealth of world-leading academic expertise and industry experience across the entire university to support their efforts in responding to the Climate Emergency.

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