The Policy Conference held during European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) is the biggest conference dedicated to renewable energy and energy efficiency in Europe. The conference hosts a number of sessions organised by the European Commission and stakeholders active in the field of sustainable energy. These sessions provide an opportunity to present and debate new policy developments, best practices, and new ideas supporting the European Union’s transition towards an energy-efficient, renewable energy-based, climate-neutral, competitive, and resilient economy.
The 2024 edition will be organised as a hybrid event between 11 and 13 June 2024. All policy sessions will be onsite in a venue in Brussels, Belgium. We encourage speakers and participants to attend onsite to benefit fully from the networking possibilities and presentations by organisations at the Energy Fair.
We invite applicants to submit their policy session ideas and contribute to the discussion.
Policy session format
The standard duration of a session is 90 minutes, and the format is up to the applicants (debate, workshop, panel discussion, campfire sessions, soapbox, etc.), but a creative approach is encouraged.
The number of speakers is limited to a maximum of seven, including the moderator.
Moderation is a key aspect of the interactivity of the session. The moderators’ role should not be limited to just giving the floor to speakers but should rather foster discussion and engage with the audience. Professional moderators should be arranged. If you do not have any good options available, you can state on the application form that you would like to have the EUSEW Secretariat identify a moderator for your session.
We recommend having the speakers onsite as much as possible to foster networking between speakers and the audience in the room.
All sessions must adhere to the principles of gender balance, diversity of opinion, and interactivity.
Successful applicants will be supported by the event organising and technical teams (i.e., for registration, logistics, web-streaming services, training, general promotion, etc.). Nevertheless, session organisers are responsible for the timely organisation and promotion of their session, such as the provision of session details for the online programme and the use of the communication toolkit, etc.
Applicants must comply with these guidelines provided by the European Sustainable Energy Week’s organising team.
EUSEW encourages youth participation in the sessions and intergenerational dialogue in the discussions around clean energy policy.
The call for sessions for the European Sustainable Energy Week Policy Conference 2024 is open to:
- organisations which fulfil the following two criteria:
- they work as multipliers using a widespread network of contacts across Europe,
- they contribute to the development and implementation of sustainable energy policy;
- representatives of EU institutions, including inter-institutional bodies.
Examples of eligible types of organisations include:
- European institutions and bodies or international organisations;
- consortia of EU-funded projects;
- national, regional/local authorities, agencies, or other public bodies (including their networks);
- business, industry, or professional associations;
- non-governmental organisations (consumer associations, environmental organisations, etc.);
- citizens' groups (energy cooperatives, energy communities, youth groups;
- research and innovation organisations (research institutes, universities, scientific foundations, and technical colleges, think tanks, etc.);
- media and press corps.
Professional event organisers or businesses aiming to promote specific products or services are not eligible.
The application form only allows you to complete one policy session proposal at a time. You may save your application as a draft to make as many changes as you want, but note that once your application is submitted, you will not be able to change it. Following your submission, you should receive an application number. This number should be referenced in all communication with the EUSEW Secretariat.
When filling in the form, please take into consideration the following guidance.
- An application should be submitted by two different organisations, with at least one being an umbrella organisation (an umbrella organisation is an association that formally incorporates other institutions working together with the same goal/interest, such as youth, consumer, or industry associations).
- Define the session objective(s) and fill in the application form as clearly as possible.
- An application needs to demonstrate that it includes plurality and diversity of opinions or voices, by including a variety of stakeholders as speakers. The Policy Conference is a platform for constructive exchanges and debate on sustainable energy issues.
- Focus on fine-tuning the agenda following the criteria outlined above and highlight the profile of each speaker (average of one line per speakers).
- Specific attention should be paid to gender balance.
- Please confirm whether the speakers and moderators have already agreed to participate in the session.
- Make sure you allocate sufficient time to facilitate interactions between the different speakers and the audience. A minimum of ¼ of the time of your session should be dedicated to Q&A or other interactive elements (word clouds, polls, quizzes, etc.).
- Please make sure you give some thought to your session title; it should be precise enough for attendees to understand what you will be talking about. Make it appealing to the EUSEW audience and avoid buzzwords and acronyms as much as possible. The organisation reserves the right to suggest an alternative title should the one proposed not meet these criteria.
- An organisation can submit up to two applications as organiser to ensure a diversity of topics or proposals across the programme.
- Please bear in mind that EU policy initiatives and/or policy state of play will be covered in the EUSEW Policy Conference’s programme with keynote speeches for each thematic block.
For inspiration, see last year’s sessions.
Proposals for hosting a session at the Policy Conference will be evaluated by a selection panel composed of European Commission staff.
Please note that the selection panel reserves the right to group applications or propose the merging of session applications where synergies or similarities can be found.
The panel will assess the information provided in the application form, with specific attention given to the following elements of the proposed session:
A. Concept and focus
B. Relevance of the topic (content)
C. Quality of the agenda
A. CONCEPT AND FOCUS
The proposal will be scored on how well it presents its concept and how the session topic will be tackled during the session. The application should make clear the session’s:
- objective/purpose (key questions);
- structure;
- format and interactivity.
B. RELEVANCE OF THE TOPIC (CONTENT)
The proposal will be scored on the basis of how relevant it is for Europe’s sustainable energy policies and what it brings to the policy debate.
Your session should contribute to the current debate in the field of sustainable energy and the European clean energy transition (2030 and 2050 energy and climate targets).
Selected sessions will be clustered around specific thematic blocks:
| Themes | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Net-zero technologies | Net-zero technologies and solutions, raw materials, competitiveness, SMEs, etc. |
| Cities and citizens | Local leadership, SECAPs, energy affordability, inclusion, energy communities, behavioural changes, etc. |
| Renewables | Permitting, tendering, community participation, technologies, RES in transport, RES in industry, etc. |
| Energy efficiency | Reduction of energy demand, energy performance of buildings, products, industry, transport, financing, heating and cooling, heat pumps, etc. |
International cooperation and decarbonisation | Green Deal measures, NECPs, ETS, COP29, etc. |
C. QUALITY OF THE AGENDA
Proposals will be scored according to the following criteria.
- Profiles, relevance, line-up of the speakers (as well as whether relevant speakers have been invited to tackle the question or topic) and the content they will deliver.
- Plurality of opinions among the speakers.
- Gender balance.
Should your application be accepted, it is your responsibility to inform the EUSEW Secretariat of changes in the speakers' line-up and agenda as soon as possible.
The deadline for the call for sessions is 19 January 2024 at 23.59 CET.
Applicants can expect to be informed about whether their session has been accepted at the beginning of March 2024.
If selected, you must provide the final session description (final title, description of the session, list of speakers, etc.) by 4 April 2024 at the latest.
Failure to meet deadlines, or major alterations in the sessions’ focus, content, speakers, or agenda, may result in the removal of the session from the EUSEW 2024 programme.
If you have questions, we invite you to read our FAQ section. Should you have any additional questions about applying for a Policy Conference session, please do not hesitate to contact the EUSEW Secretariat at conference
eusew [dot] eu (conference[at]eusew[dot]eu).
Please make sure you have registered to receive our newsletters in order to stay up to date with our announcements.
Join us with your questions at the Info Session taking place on Wednesday 15 November 2023 at 11.00 CET.