Dr Peter Barbrook-Johnson
About
Dr Peter Barbrook-Johnson is a social scientist, economist, complexity scientist, and systems thinker. He regularly uses research methods such as agent-based modelling and systems mapping in his applied environmental, energy, and public health research and policy analysis. He teaches on a range of undergraduate and masters courses, focussing on the economics of environmental change, and the use of complexity and systems sciences in environmental issues.
Recent work highlights include:
- Book on systems mapping, a practical guide written with Dr Alexandra Penn.
- A library of new economic modelling case studies. Dr Barbrook-Johnson led the production of this large report with colleagues from China, India, Brazil, the EU, and UK. It presents a range of new economic modelling approaches being used to understand and inform policy on the energy transition.
Dr Barbrook-Johnson is currently a Departmental Research Lecturer in the Economics of Environmental Change in the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) and the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment (SSEE), both in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford.
He is the Deputy Director of the NERC-funded Agile Initiative, which aims to revolutionise how research responds to the urgent needs of policymakers on critical environmental issues. He is also the Technical Modelling Lead for the UK government EEIST (Economics of Energy Innovation and System Transition) project on new economic modelling of energy innovation and transition.
Dr Barbrook-Johnson is a member of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford, a Research Associate at St Catherine's College, a member of the the Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN), and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Research in Social Simulation (CRESS) and Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey.
Previously, he was a Senior Research Associate at the University of Oxford, and a Senior Research Fellow and ESRC Innovation Fellow at the University of Surrey (based in CECAN and CRESS, both in the Department of Sociology). Dr Barbrook-Johnson has also been a Research Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute and regularly undertakes consultancy work for the public and private sectors. He completed his PhD in agent-based modelling at the University of Surrey in 2014.
Expertise
- Climate policy
- Policy analysis
- Energy policy
- Policy modelling and simulation
- Systems thinking
Selected publications
- Sensitive intervention points: a strategic approach to climate action (2023)
- Systems Mapping: How to build and use causal models of systems (2022)
- Justified Stories with Agent-Based Modelling for Local COVID-19 Planning (2021)
- Participatory complexity in tourism policy: Understanding sustainability programmes with participatory systems mapping (2021)
- Computational Modelling of Public Policy: Reflections on Practice (2018)