"My research focuses on the social, economic, and environmental impact of decisions made in the energy sector"

Dr Roberto Cantoni has joined the IQS Department of Ethics and Christian Thought after having received a prestigious Ramón y Cajal grant that will allow him to carry out his research projects in the fields of Energy, Environmental Justice, and Political Ecology at the university for five years. Dr Cantoni is also a member of the Board of Directors of theEnvironmental Justice Atlas, the largest active platform that compiles cases of environmental injustice around the world.

We spoke with Dr Cantoni about the significance of the grant he earned, his areas of expertise, and him joining IQS as a professor and researcher.

Roberto, can you tell us about your career as a researcher and your areas of expertise?

My career has been really varied as I’m rather restless. I started studying Physics at the University of Naples, but I had many other interests as well. I studied several master’s degrees on Language Evolution, Science Communication, and Science Journalism, along with History, Philosophy, and the Sociology of Science. I did my PhD in the History of Science and Technology at the University of Manchester. My thesis focused on the role of geophysical exploration technologies to extract gas and oil in the Cold War era. I delved into how the most advanced technologies made it possible to obtain the resources from places, which conditioned policies.

I became interested in the subject of energy and did several postdocs, always with a sociological approach, on energy resources such as shale gas, oil, nuclear energy, and finally came to renewable energy. I worked for almost two years with the CIREG Project on the integration of renewable technologies in West African countries at the Centre for Development Research (ZEF, University of Bonn). In 2019, I earned a Marie Curie European grant for a project at the UAB Institute of the History of Science. It entailed a socio-historical methodology on the Italian anti-nuclear protest movements in the 1960s – 1980s, but I had to resign due to difficulties in accessing archives as it coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic. I did another postdoc at SPRU (University of Sussex) on Decarbonization and Just Transition in certain areas of Europe (Germany, Estonia, Poland, and Greece) that depend on coal, mines, and thermal plants, and the implementation of the energy transition in these regions (CINTRAN Project).

I then obtained a Beatriu de Pinós grant to work at the ICTA – UAB Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technologies, with the Environmental Justice group led by Dr Joan Martínez Alier, one of the founders of Ecological Economics, with a theme closely related to what I had previously done in Africa. During this time I worked in the Western Sahara and French Guyana, along with Brazil, two interesting regions due to territorial disputes that are intertwined with the discourse on green growth: in the Western Sahara, Morocco is building renewable energy plants to give it economic legitimacy, and in some way, legitimacy to its occupation. In French Guyana solar plants are being built following the decision of an external government located thousands of kilometres away that does not take into account the impact of these decisions on local communities, which has led to vast protests about the construction of solar plants that will destroy an area that is home to an indigenous community.

So, your current field of research, with this Ramón y Cajal grant, is Environmental and Energy Justice?

Yes, I am finally focusing my research on the social, economic, and environmental impact of decisions made in the energy sector. In some parts of Africa, electronic waste dumps from Europe and the Americas are being created because we are very unaware of the scope and consequences of technological development.

“We are very unaware of the scope and consequences of technological development”

Now, I’ve just finished publishing the results of the research in French Guyana, the CINTRAN project, and the impact of the closure of coal mines in certain parts of Europe: the energy and ecological transition in those areas can cause mass unemployment and, in political terms, it can become a tendency to vote for populist parties with very simplistic narratives that function politically. That’s what I’m working on now.

What has earning this Ramón y Cajal grant meant to you?

Stability at last! For me it’s really significant to have earned it. The Ramón y Cajal grant provides funding for five years and I’m proud to say that I earned it in the first year of applying, which is not typical and I didn’t expect it.

Why did you choose IQS-URL to conduct your research?

Well, I have several reasons. I couldn’t be accepted as a Ramón y Cajal researcher at ICTA due to issues related to the institute’s status. I had several offers, but I wanted to stay in Barcelona.

In the interview I did at IQS, they highly valued the fact that my research represents a midway point between the two schools, the School of Engineering and the School of Management. It was a very positive point because it opened the door to really interesting collaborations between the two schools. In addition, I’d been working here and there for many years along with many remote jobs. Dr Flavio Comim explained the policy of on-campus work to me and the close collaboration at IQS, which is what I really sought.

“My area of expertise opens the door to collaborations between the two schools at IQS”

Another thing that made me choose IQS was the possibility of teaching, something that I had not been able to do in depth until now, and I enjoy being able to share my knowledge and experience with future professionals.

“At IQS, I can share my knowledge and experience with future professionals”

To conclude, what do you hope to achieve during this research period?

Five years is a long time. As I’ve already said, I would like to achieve work, personal, and scientific stability while collaborating with other IQS researchers.

“I would like to be able to create my own Environmental Justice Group”

I would like to be able to create my own Environmental Justice Group, because it isn’t a generic concept in reality, as it may seem at first glance, and there are infinite interrelationships. Each social group has its own idea of “justice” and “environment,” and we need to study the impact of, for example, an idea generated in Europe and implemented in Bolivia and whether it will have value in the society in which it is implemented. The criteria of justice do not have to coincide equally everywhere, and that makes projects fail oftentimes.

“Projects fail oftentimes because of differences in the criteria of justice”

I would like to study the justice frameworks in force in specific countries and how to facilitate a common vision of justice criteria to be applied in launching projects. This is both of theoretical importance, in terms of differentiating the various ideas of justice that exist, and in terms of practical applications that allow us to offer a basis for mutual understanding.

Ramón y Cajal Grants

The Ramón y Cajal grants awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities – State Research Agency aim to promote the incorporation of research personnel with outstanding career paths into research organizations to gain skills and capabilities that enable them to establish themselves within the Spanish Science, Technology, and Innovation system, especially for individuals who have done research activities abroad.