A growing partnership between Scottish charity Quarriers and Edinburgh Futures Institute is demonstrating how third sector-student partnerships can bring fresh perspectives on the use of data to understand Scotland’s energy future.
Quarriers, a leading Scottish charity delivering services nationwide, brings deep, frontline experience of supporting people facing poverty, disability, homelessness and mental health challenges. Quarriers is a partner in Project VERIFY, a UK energy innovation project that integrates and analyses multiple datasets to better understand the needs of different communities. Datasets include network data, property information, consumer demographics, and smart meter data. Through the study of data, Project VERIFY is helping to shape how a ‘just transition’ in Scotland’s energy future should be understood in practice, grounded in lived realities.
Students as Change Agents
As part of the Futures Institute’s undergraduate programme Interdisciplinary Futures, students on the course ‘Students As Change Agents’ worked directly with Quarriers to respond to the challenge set by the organisation: How might they ensure that Scotland’s transition to renewable energy is truly just – benefiting vulnerable people and addressing, rather than worsening, the inequalities they experience?
Students responded by developing a range of proposals that aligned closely with Quarriers’ values and priorities. A strong theme across the research was the importance of trust, building on Quarrier’s community-based approaches. Students explored how analogue, human-centred methods can complement digital systems and improve access for those experiencing fuel poverty.
Inspired by Quarriers’ existing work, students examined how data could be used responsibly and effectively to identify need earlier, suggesting consent-led referral systems and shared tools that enable preventative rather than reactive interventions. These ideas reflect Quarriers’ ongoing commitment to ethical, person-centred data use.
Developing a targeted, data-driven approach
The collaborative research between students and Quarriers aims to address gaps in policy and service provision, using insights from Quarriers to identify where support could have the greatest impact using targeted pilot programmes and scalable models that combine national data with local knowledge, taking the approach of delivering tailored, place-based support. Informed by Quarriers’ extensive community presence across Scotland, students emphasised the need to connect energy transition strategies with local economic and social contexts, ensuring that communities see tangible, lasting benefits.
Communication and participation also emerged as critical themes. The collaborative research outlined how to better include public voices in policymaking, whether through more accessible consultation processes or more engaging, community-led communication formats to ensure proposals remained relevant to both policymakers and the people most affected.
The research highlights the role that partnerships between charities, policymakers, and regulators play in shaping a fair and inclusive energy transition. As a service provider with deep community roots, Quarriers brings frontline insight, innovation and thought leadership to both Scotland’s ‘Just transition’ agenda and the learning experience of Edinburgh Futures Institute students.
Ewan Carmichael (Policy and External Relations Manager, Quarriers) and Ben Davren (Creative Project Coordinator, Quarriers) challenged Edinburgh Futures Institute students to think beyond the theoretical context and focus on practicalities. By combining the expertise of Quarriers with the creativity and interdisciplinary approaches of Futures Institute students, the collaboration is generating practical, forward-looking ideas grounded in real-world needs. Together, this cross-sector collaboration can help ensure Scotland’s journey to net zero delivers meaningful, lasting benefits for all communities.
Ewan Carmichael, Policy and External Relations Manager, Quarriers
“Quarriers works to tackle the sharp end of Scotland’s social challenges – fuel poverty, multiple disadvantage, and systemic vulnerability. As a project partner of the VERIFY energy project, we’re exploring the use of smart data to respond to these challenges differently: identifying those most at risk before crisis hits, and ensuring support reaches them earlier. That level of work requires rigorous thinking, honest challenge, and fresh perspectives.
What our partnership with Edinburgh Futures Institute has provided us with is all three. The undergraduate programme put our thinking in front of a critical, independent audience – students who engaged seriously, asked difficult questions, and presented us with solutions in ways we hadn’t anticipated. That’s not something easily manufactured internally, and it’s not something every external partnership delivers.
The relationship between the third sector and academia in Scotland should look like this. Quarriers bringing live, complex, ongoing challenges to Edinburgh Futures Institute, and the Institute’s students producing the kind of thinking that helps shift how we approach them. We’re excited to take learnings into the next phase of VERIFY’s development, and I hope it marks the beginning of a long-term collaboration.”
Ben Davren, Creative Project Coordinator, Quarriers
“The students tackled the issue with great enthusiasm, and we were truthfully blown away by the critical engagement that was shown. To have that many minds thinking about a very real-life challenge we face as an organisation in such a critical manner was really beneficial for us to understand the intersectional impact that project VERIFY could have. I sincerely hope that the students gained as much from this experience as I have and I look forward to working closely with Edinburgh Futures Institute into the future.”
Related links
Project VERIFY
