Professor Carolyn Snell

Profile

Areas of expertise

• Climate change and climate policy
• Environmental justice
• Environmental harm and crime
• Just transition to net zero
• Food insecurity and policy
• Fuel poverty
• Inequality
• Participation and protest

Academic biography

I am a Professor of Social Policy with a multidisciplinary background and joined the Department in 2007. My career began with a degree in Politics and English Literature and was followed by an MA and PhD in Social Policy. Following this I held a research post at the Stockholm Environment Institute where I worked on the social and public policy dimensions of transport policies.

Since 2011 my research and publications have largely focused on energy policy in the UK, with a particular interest in fuel poverty. In 2011 I received a grant from Eaga Charitable Trust to investigate the relationship between fuel poverty, welfare reforms and disabled people and in 2014 I received an EPSRC grant to research whether food bank recipients were facing a 'heat or eat' dilemma as suggested by many news reports. I held a UKERC grant between 2015-2018 that considered the policy effectiveness of energy efficiency policies aimed at households vulnerable to fuel poverty policy effectiveness of energy efficiency policies aimed at households vulnerable to fuel poverty.

Between 2020-2021 I worked alongside Kelli Kennedy on an ESRC NPIF Accelerating Business Collaboration Funding knowledge exchange project with one of the UK’s large supermarkets, aiming to identify ethical and sustainable ways in which the industry might address food insecurity.   

I am currently academic lead on a Nuffield funded project that seeks to understand how the UK’s transition to net zero will affect families, and the communities in which they live.

Professional activities

I am co-lead of the UK Social Policy Association's Climate Justice and Social Policy group.

I am a member of the ESRC White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership’s Academic Quality Committee and also sit on the University of York Graduate Research School’s Policy and Programmes Committee. 

I am Deputy Chair of the University’s Plastic Network. 

Research

Research

My current research interests are:

• Fuel poverty and policy 
• Climate policy 
• Energy policy
• Just transition to net zero 
• Environmental justice
• Environmental harm
• Disability
• Public participation in policy 

Current research project:

I am currently academic lead on a Nuffield funded project that seeks to understand how the UK's transition to net zero will affect families, and the communities in which they live. 

Previous funded research:

• How might we improve housing management to enhance health and wellbeing, Wallace, A., Carslaw, N. & Snell, C.J., Innovate UK (2020)

• Policy pathways to justice in energy efficiency, Snell, C.J. & Bevan, M.A., EPSRC (2015)

• Heat or Eat: Food and Austerity in Rural England, Snell, C.J., EPSRC (2014)

• Identifying sustainable pathways out of in- work poverty, Swaffield, J., Bradshaw, J.R., Snell, C.J. & Tunstall, B., ESRC/City of York Council/JRF/York St John College (2013)

• Fuel poverty and disability, Snell, C.J., Beresford, B.A.,  Bevan, M.A., EAGA Charitable Trust (2012)

• Sustainable schools project in Wakefield, Snell, C.J., City of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council (2009)

• Supporting customers with affordability issues, Snell, C.J., Consumer Council for Water (2008)

PhD supervision

I have an interdisciplinary research background, and I am trained in both quantitative and qualitative research methods. As such I am interested in supervising a range of topics as long as they are relevant to the environment and social policy.

Research labels:

Housing, health, social research methods, comparative and global social policy

Publications

Full Publications List

View in PURE

Teaching

Teaching

I coordinate two modules:

• Environmental Justice, Harm, and Policy (3rd year Undergraduate)
• Victimisation and Social Harm (2nd year Undergraduate)