We believe that to foster innovation in the areas of clean, low-carbon, and sustainable energy research and training, the individuals working in these areas must be more diverse. WISER seeks to increase the strength, visibility, and impact of gender-diverse energy scholars from a wide range of backgrounds across intersecting axes of geography, class, race, ability, age, faith, and more.

WISER was founded in the spring of 2017 in Toronto, Canada to connect women researching clean energy and to address challenges and biases in this field due to gender, race, Indigeneity, class, and other identity factors. We have since grown to be a global network with nearly 200 members located in over 26 countries! Our membership crosses career stages – from PhD students to professors – and disciplines from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to humanities and the social sciences. We have also grown to partner with like-minded groups to foster clean and just energy transitions.

Together our aim is to motivate women and non-binary academics to contribute toward a more generous mode of knowledge production and sharing in clean, low-carbon, and sustainable energy research. We seek to empower our membership through professional development, collaboration, knowledge dissemination, and networking activities.

WISER also acts as a resource that institutions, researchers, and the public can draw upon. We do so by providing a platform to access a critical mass of women conducting research on clean, low-carbon, or sustainable energy systems. WISER invites you to use our network to help diversify sites of expert knowledge, including speaker panels, citations, or research collaborations.

For more information on how to connect with our researchers, see our Media page. To join our growing membership, please contact us.

We are a global network seeking to address fundamental inequalities related to climate change and sustainable energy transitions in academic research fields, public fora, and policy spaces. Doing so requires reflection and recognition of how the day-to-day lives of certain groups, particularly Indigenous Peoples, are amongst the most affected by environmental issues and energy policies.

Further, WISER recognizes that respecting and supporting Indigenous Peoples’ rights for energy sovereignty and ways of knowing are essential for pathways toward more sustainable and just energy systems. As a group, WISER seeks to promote emancipatory spaces, knowledge, and connections that fundamentally challenge the reproduction of colonial relations of power and violence in order to foster more inclusive and just societies.