The EPSEI exchange program aims at improving the integration of methodologies and tools concerning the evaluation of investments for sustainable energy.

The project addresses three research aspects concerning the fragmentation into sectoral domains and national traditions:

• the prospective investigation deriving from the study on the legal framework is rather underestimated in economic modelling and econometric analysis, where the attention is focused mainly on legal constraints instead of the dynamics of norms;

• the scientific expertise needs to be more integrated into social science research concerning energy topics. The mitigation of climate change by means of international agreements is an example of scientific dialogue, though insufficient because mediated by policymakers and public opinion;

• the evaluation of the policies for sustainable energy investments requires to connect several national approaches on such topics, not only in the European Research Area, where the fragmentation of social sciences into national traditions is a matter of fact, but also in other research areas where policy options concerning sustainable energy are conditioned by geological, geoeconomic and geopolitical considerations, such as countries rich in energy resources or acting as global players.