Profile

Noam Bergman joined the Lower Carbon Futures team in January 2008 to work on micro-generation and small scale renewables. He joined ECI from the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia, where he worked on the European MATISSE project, focusing on transitions to sustainable development, and developing modelling tools for policymakers to assess sustainability implications of proposed policies, and leading on a case study of transitions to sustainable housing in the UK.

Noam previously trained as a natural scientist, studying Physics as an undergraduate and Environmental Sciences at MSc level, both at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. He completed a PhD in Earth System Sciences at the School of Environmental Sciences of UEA in Norwich in 2003, where he developed COPSE, a geological time-scale biogeochemical model.

Research Interests

• Low energy housing and microgeneration, and their part in a shift to a low carbon future.
• Broader issues of environmentally and socially sustainable housing and communities, and the prospects of mainstreaming radical ideas from alternative houses and communities.
• Transition theory and its implications for sustainability: this means systemic change and paradigm shift, including behavioural change, cultural, institutional and policy changes, as well as possible technological innovations.
• Modelling, including agent-based modelling, of all of the above.

Recent Publications

• Staffell, I., Baker, P., Barton, J., Bergman, N., Blanchard, R., Brandon, N.P., Brett, D.J.L., Hawkes, A., Infield, D., Jardine, C., Kelly, N., Leach, M., Matian, M., Peacock, A.D., Sudtharalingam, S., Woodman, B. (2010). UK Microgeneration. Part II: technology overviews. Proceedings of the ICE – Energy, 163(4) 143-166.
• Bergman N,. Eyre, N. (in press). What role for microgeneration in a shift to a low carbon domestic energy sector in the UK? /Energy Efficiency/.
• Hawkes, A., Bergman, N., Jardine, C., Staffel, I., Brett, D., Brandon, N., 2011. A Change of Scale? Prospects for Distributed Energy Resources. Chapter 8 in: Skea, J., Ekins, P., Winskel, M. (Eds.), Energy 2050: Making the transition to a secure lower carbon energy system. Earthscan, London.
• Hawkes, A., Bergman, N., Jardine, C., Staffell, I., Brett, D. and Brandon, N. (2010) A change of scale? prospects for distributed energy resources. Chapter 8 in, Skea, J., Ekins, P. and M. Winskel (eds.) Energy 2050 - Making the Transition to a Secure Low Carbon Energy System. Earthscan, ISBN 9781849710848.
• Bergman, N. and Jardine, C. (2009) Power from the People: Domestic Microgeneration and the Low Carbon Buildings Programme. ECI Research Report No 34.
• Bergman, N., Hawkes, Brett, Baker, Barton, Blanchard, Brandon, Infield, Jardine, C., Kelly, Leach, Matian, Peacock, Staffell, Sudtharalingam, Woodman (2009) UK microgeneration. Part I: policy and behavioural aspects. Energy 162(1), 22-36
• Noam Bergman, Lorraine Whitmarsh and Jonathan Köhler. Transition to sustainable development in the UK housing sector: from case study to model implementation. Tyndall working paper (submitted).
• Bergman Noam, Alex Haxeltine, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Jonathan Köhler, Michel Schilperoord, Jan Rotmans. Modelling Socio-technical Transition Patterns and Pathways. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (submitted).
• Bergman Noam, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Jonathan Köhler, Alex Haxeltine and Michel Schilperoord. Modelling and assessing transitions to sustainable housing and communities in the UK. in International Conference on Whole Life Urban Sustainability and its Assessment – Conference Proceedings. M. Horner, C. Hardcastle, A. Price, J. Bebbington (Eds), Glasgow, 2007.
• Alex Haxeltine, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Jan Rotmans, Michel Schilperoord, Noam Bergman, Jonathan Köhler. A conceptual framework for transition modelling. International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development (submitted).
• Whitmarsh, Lorraine, Jonathan Köhler, Noam Bergman, Alex Haxeltine, Björn Nykvist and Martin Wietschel. Modelling and assessing transition pathways to a hydrogen society. MATISSE Working Paper 3, 2006.
• Messias M-J, A J. Watson, L. Anderson, S. Bacon , N. Bergman, G. Budeus, J. C. Gascard , T. Johannessen, , J. R. Ledwell, A. Olsson, J. Olafsson, K. Oliver, F. Rey , K. Simonsen , M. Smethie, J. Swift. The Greenland Sea Tracer Experiment: ventilation of the Greenland Sea intermediate waters and interconnectivity with the surrounding basins. Progress in Oceanography (in press).
• Bergman, Noam M., Timothy M. Lenton and Andrew J. Watson. COPSE: a new model of biogeochemical cycling over Phanerozoic time. American Journal of Science, v. 304, p. 397-437, 2004.
• Bergman, Noam M., Timothy M. Lenton and Andrew J. Watson. A new biogeochemical Earth system model for the Phanerozoic Eon, in Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century, MIT Press 2004.