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Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration has become a common practice in technology development projects. Rarely, however, the integration (and translation) of knowledge from different disciplines and different societal contexts is reported in detail. In this article, we address this gap and present the inter- and transdisciplinary technology development in the international research project “DigiMon—Digital Monitoring of CO2 Storage Projects” that aims to develop a human-centered monitoring system. Based on interviews, surveys and stakeholder workshops in Norway, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands, we identify characteristics of CO2 storage monitoring systems that reflect the concerns and expectations of publics and stakeholders. We document the translation of social scientific findings into technical expertise for the design of a monitoring system. We discuss how the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary process has affected the technology development. In outlining how this process was set up, carried out and validated, we are able to show a viable route for the meaningful incorporation of heterogeneous knowledge in complex energy infrastructures. Furthermore, we discuss the features of the project organization that made this comprehensive process possible. Thus, our results contribute to inter- and transdisciplinary research organization in general and to the development of methods for monitoring CO2 storage in particular.

The DigiMon project aims to develop and demonstrate an affordable, flexible, societally embedded, and smart digital monitoring early warning system for any subsurface CO2 storage field. The societal embeddedness level (SEL) assessment is a novel methodology which provides insight into the societal requirements for technological innovation to be deployed. The SEL assessment framework was applied in four case studies, concerning CCS development in Norway, the Netherlands, Greece, and Germany. The resulting societal embeddedness levels of CCS, on a scale of 1–4, were SEL 3 in Norway with considerable progress towards level 4, followed by the Netherlands with SEL 2 with several initiatives towards offshore demonstration projects, and then by Greece and Germany with SEL 1. The outcomes of the SEL assessments show which societal requirements have been met in current CCS developments and which ones should be improved for CCS deployment. They also show that monitoring currently is a regulatory requirement as part of permitting procedures, while it may alleviate community concerns on safety, provided that it has certain attributes. The insights from the four national case studies are further used in the DigiMon project to develop the innovative societal embedded DigiMon monitoring system.

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To meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, effective climate policies need to be implemented. However, climate policies are often not implemented due to low (expected) acceptability among citizens. To gain insight into acceptability levels of various policy types, we examined how individual characteristics (personal values and concern about climate change), policy-specific beliefs (perceived effectiveness and fairness) and policy characteristics (e.g., communicative, financial, and legal) affect the acceptability of climate policies. A representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 1,536) completed an online questionnaire containing 18 climate policy measures. Results showed that perceived fairness and effectiveness were the main predictors of policy acceptability. Concern about climate change and personal values were of lesser importance. Communicative policies were evaluated as the most acceptable, most effective, and among the fairest policies, while financial policies were perceived as somewhat acceptable and fair and were also among the most effective policies. Legislative policies received the lowest scores on all ratings. Further, participants perceived punishing, push measures as more acceptable, effective, and fair compared to rewarding, pull measures. Packages combining a push and a pull measure received the lowest acceptability and fairness ratings but were seen as somewhat effective. This suggests that not only the type of policy but the policy itself and the targeted domain and behaviour also play a role. Additionally, policies targeting efficiency behaviour were perceived as more acceptable, effective, and fair compared to policies targeting curtailment behaviour.