Who keeps the lights on? The political economy of network energy in Britain, 1950-2023

[[{"fid":"16173","view_mode":"small","fields":{"height":"2873","width":"1920","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left","format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"cover","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"_none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"height":"2873","width":"1920","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left","format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"cover","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"_none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"2873","width":"1920","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left"}}]]Arthur Downing is an economic historian working on a book on the history of the energy sector for Verso Press. He holds a Dphil in Economic History from Oxford University, where he was a Fellow of All Souls College. He then worked at the Boston Consulting Group, National Grid, National Gas Transmission. He is currently a Director of Strategy at Octopus Energy. In his spare time he blogs about enegy history http://energyworks.substack.com/

[[{"fid":"16341","view_mode":"small","fields":{"height":"320","width":"320","class":"media-element file-small","format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Francesca Edgerton","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"height":"320","width":"320","class":"media-element file-small","format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Francesca Edgerton","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"320","width":"320","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left"}}]]Francesca Edgerton is a Deputy Head of Policy working on industrial policy in the director’s office. She supports Professor Mazzucato in the crafting and implementation of strategies that support green industrial policy around the world. This includes policy development, shaping academic narratives, desk and stakeholder research, project management and implementation. She leads on providing content-specific support on key industrial policy developments globally, focusing on Brazil, Mexico, the UK and the USA, as well as the green transition, school meals, AI and semiconductors. She works directly with government, civil society, and academic stakeholders in each of these contexts to achieve policy goals on green industrial strategy.

Francesca worked on the intersection of tech and democracy for two years at the Open Society Foundations, focusing on AI industrial strategy and global tech governance. At OSF, she focused on achieving mission orientated goals through grant making, advocacy and narrative change in areas such as tech anti-monopoly organising and global big tech accountability, as well as through supporting independent media. Francesca previously worked as a researcher at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she authored reports and conducted research on media viability, mis/disinformation and media capture for a variety of policy and academic audiences.
Prior to this, Francesca worked in independent film distribution in Latin America, where she led on business development in Mexico and the Southern Cone.

She is currently also pursuing an AHRC funded part-time PhD on the history of exile in 20th century Mexico at UCL. Francesca did her master’s in Latin American History at New York University, and her undergrad in History at the University of Edinburgh.