We received a call to rescue the significant collection of renewable energy academic Professor David Elliott, and had to act fast.
David Elliott is Professor of Technology Policy at the Open University. During his long career he has created courses in Design and Innovation and focused on how the innovation development process may be applied to sustainable technologies. His main research interests cover the development of said technologies and renewable energy systems.
In October 2023 we were put in touch with Dave after he found out he would have to relocate his archive and library collection at short notice. We were delighted to work with him to ensure that his collection found a new home at the Mills Archive Trust, covering its packaging and transport costs.
Since then, parts of Dave’s collection have been explored by researchers, and young people especially have found the Undercurrents magazines to be particularly interesting and timely given their own interests in contemporary sustainability issues and climate change. These magazines are being actively consulted by our Youth Sustainability Group and have formed the basis of research by several University of Reading interns.
There is still more work to be done to progressively catalogue his collection to greater detail. Also, the opportunity to inform people interested in renewable energy and climate change today is considerable but it will take time for us to publicise our holdings among groups of people currently unaware of the Trust.
His collection includes:
Publications including all print issues of bimonthly NATTA newsletter “Renew” (1979-2009); all issues of “Undercurrents” (1972-1984), the first 50 books in Palgrave’s “Energy, Climate and Environment” series for which David Elliott was editor (2007-2023), OU Technology Policy Group reports, other books and reports on renewable energy and energy policy and the David Ross collection of books and reports on wave and tide energy. These are now catalogued and publicly accessible in our Library.
His archival material includes:
- Papers on Greater London Council’s energy and employment strategy, 1980s
- Papers on wave energy, 1980s-2002
- Papers on Lucas Aerospace and the Lucas Plan
- Papers on renewable energy and government policy, including:
- File on the ‘Non-fossil fuel obligation’, 1990
- Papers on the National Audit Office’s renewable energy study, 1990s
- File on the Performance and Innovation Unit’s energy policy review, 2001
- Renewable energy slides.
