ASOCIACION ECO-UNION

Their core work

Eco-Union is a Barcelona-based environmental association that applies social science methods to energy policy and transition governance. Their work centers on the human dimensions of decarbonization: why citizens and communities do or do not adopt clean energy, how social, psychological, and political forces shape energy transitions, and how to design policy that works with those forces rather than against them. In EU projects they typically contribute qualitative research, citizen engagement frameworks, and policy analysis — bridging the gap between technical energy solutions and the social realities that determine whether those solutions actually get adopted. Their work spans prosumer rights (citizens who both produce and consume energy), gender equity in energy access, and the social conditions that enable coal regions to shift toward clean energy.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Eco-Union's early H2020 work (PROSEU, 2018) focused on energy democracy and prosumerism — the practical question of how to bring citizens from passive consumers to active participants in energy markets. By 2020, their focus had deepened toward more systemic social-ecological dynamics: tipping points, regional transformation in coal communities, and the political economy of resistance (including populism and generational divides). This trajectory suggests a deliberate move from engagement mechanics toward understanding the structural social conditions that enable or block large-scale energy transitions.

Eco-Union is moving toward systemic transition research — from individual citizen engagement toward regional and societal tipping-point dynamics — making them a strong candidate for projects addressing just transition, coal phase-out, or social resistance to decarbonization.

How they like to work

Eco-Union has never coordinated an H2020 project, always participating as a partner — which indicates they position themselves as a specialist contributor rather than a project leader. Despite their modest size, they have worked with 29 distinct partners across 20 countries, suggesting they are genuinely sought out for their specific social science lens rather than simply being included to fill a geographic or SME quota. For a prospective collaborator, this means they are experienced at integrating their analysis into larger multi-disciplinary consortia, but are unlikely to take on project management responsibility.

With 29 unique consortium partners across 20 countries from just two projects, Eco-Union has an unusually broad collaborative footprint for their size, pointing to participation in large pan-European RIA consortia. Their network spans the full geographic spread of EU energy transition research, not concentrated in any single region.

What sets them apart

Eco-Union occupies a rare niche: they are one of the few civil society associations in southern Europe with hands-on EU research experience in the social science of energy transitions, as opposed to the technical or engineering side. Where most energy research organizations bring lab results or technology readiness, Eco-Union brings understanding of why people and communities resist or embrace change — which is often the actual bottleneck in deploying clean energy at scale. For consortia building projects on just transition, energy poverty, community energy, or coal region decarbonization, they provide the social legitimacy and analytical framing that purely technical partners cannot.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PROSEU
  Their largest project (€291,250) and one of the first EU-scale research efforts to systematically study prosumer policy frameworks across multiple European countries.
• TIPPING.plus
  Addresses one of the most politically sensitive dimensions of the Green Deal — how to trigger and sustain transition in coal-dependent communities — incorporating gender and populism as analytical variables rarely seen in energy research.