Sarah has 25 years’ experience in energy access and just energy transition policy advocacy, action research and programme design and implementation, working for a range of organisations. She is a co-founder of the ACCESS network.

Since May 2021, Sarah has been Senior Research Associate at the Sustainable Transitions, Energy, Environment and Resilience (STEER) Centre at Loughborough University, UK where she leads STEER’s work on inclusive and cross-sectoral energy planning and supports the research theme on just energy systems.  She is the co-creator of the Energy Delivery Models design approach. The EDM approach has been used to design energy-enabled solutions for local development and in displacement settings, and to train project developers in Southern countries. Most recently, it used as the core methodology for an EU-Kenya Ministry of Energy Sustainable Technical Assistance (SETA) project (2020-24), supporting capacity building for government officials and other stakeholders on integrated energy planning. It has been used to design two County Energy Plans in Kenya.

Current EDM projects include training the Mwangaza Network of CSOs in DRC on inclusive energy planning, supported by the 11th Hour Project, and further support for designing clean cooking services at county level in Kenya, under a UK PACT-funded project, working with GAMOS East Africa. Research projects include Mainstreaming Gender Equality and Social Inclusion for a Just Energy Transition in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania (JustGESI), a three-year interdisciplinary project funded by UKRI’s Ayrton Challenge Programme.

From 2010 to 2020, Sarah led the UK-based Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD)’s policy research and advocacy on climate and energy. AT CAFOD, she developed ground-breaking research on UK public support for energy overseas. This underpinned CAFOD’s successful campaigning to end UK public support for fossil fuels and scale up support for energy access. In collaboration with other NGOs, these efforts won a David and Goliath campaigning award from the Sheila McKechnie Foundation in 2021. She also developed new research on energy safety nets, social protection mechanisms to deliver energy access for the poorest, in collaboration with the Overseas Development Institute and Sustainable Energy for All. From 2002-2009, she worked for anti-corruption watchdog Global Witness investigating oil sector governance in Sub-Saharan Africa and advocating for greater transparency and accountability through the global Publish What You Pay campaign (now Resource Justice Network). She holds an MA & PhD from the University of London and a BA from the University of Cambridge.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahwykes/