The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy creates the conditions for policy innovation that support a just and efficient transition to sustainable energy.
The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy actively engages students from all disciplines through energy-focused courses, internships, professional development opportunities, and a certificate program. The Center also convenes thought leaders from academia, industry, and government for impactful discussions on the most pressing global energy issues.
Its research agenda is focused on exploring how energy policy can effectively address climate change while ensuring that clean energy benefits are shared equitably across all communities.
The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy creates impactful research, convenes today’s experts, and cultivates tomorrow’s leaders—through research grants, collaborative exchanges, public lectures, and world-class instruction
Reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century is essential to avoiding the most severe impacts of climate change. The Kleinman Center conducts research that addresses both the reduction and removal of emissions, exploring solutions that capture greenhouse gases at the point source or from the atmosphere.
Institutions have the power to either accelerate or hinder a rapid and equitable energy transition. From federal regulatory agencies to regional cooperative frameworks, the Center investigates how institutional processes and structures influence successful outcomes.
Tackling climate change requires innovative and disruptive policy design—locally, nationally, and globally. With a strong focus on energy policy, and a combined understanding of the laws and technologies that influence it, the Kleinman Center designs and evaluates today’s policy solutions.
Senior fellow practitioners add breadth to the Center’s agenda and connect teaching and scholarship to applied public policy outcomes through off-campus work. In collaboration with center leaders, each fellow designs a portfolio of work that often involves teaching and lecturing, writing, and developing projects that help apply Penn’s academic strengths to real-world problems.
Naming the Kleinman Center’s undergraduate fellows program will allow expansion of this unique and important learning opportunity, increasing the number of students enrolled and the guests invited for lectures, tutorials, and mentorships. In its fourth year, the undergraduate fellows program provides student participants with unique exposure to academics and industry leaders in energy policy.
The Center’s faculty—with joint appointments between the Center and the Schools of design, law, and engineering—represent a significant new body of applied scholarship at the Center. Support for specialized research initiatives may be directed to specific, timely projects embedded under the three themes explored above: greenhouse gas removal, institutions and governance, and policy design.
The Kleinman Center’s well-attended and topically diverse public lecture series draws a virtual and in-person audience of Penn community members in addition to off-campus partners and practitioners. This extensive lecture series is curated during the academic year, resulting in six public lectures each semester.
Professors of practice expand course offerings and direct applied research projects with visible policy impact. In many fields, including energy policy, hands-on experience is essential to understanding how government and industry operate and how to best motivate change.
The Kleinman Center Energy Forum is one of the premier unnamed event spaces on Penn campus. Located in the iconic Fisher Fine Arts Library, this beautiful and historically significant space hosts more than one hundred events per year, ranging from the Kleinman Center’s annual Carnot Prize to the University’s trustee meetings. With its state-of-the-art technology, the forum provides recorded and livestreamed events to a global audience.
Designing effective policy requires both depth and breadth of expertise. The Kleinman Center accomplishes this great work by building research connections across Penn’s many Schools and building partnerships with scholars, practitioners, and policymakers across the globe.