Dr Sugandha Srivastav

Profile

Dr Sugandha Srivastav is a Senior Research Associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, where she leads the research on energy, innovation and economic policy for the Climate Compatible Growth Programme at Oxford. She is also a Lecturer in Environmental Economics where she co-leads the module on the economics of climate policy and green innovation. Dr. Sugandha holds various positions across the University including being a college tutor at St Antony's, a Senior Research Fellow at INET Oxford, an associate of the Economics Department, and an Oxford Net Zero Fellow. Externally, in recognition for her outstanding work on the economics of decarbonisation in Asia, she has been appointed as a Fellow at Energy for Growth Hub.

Dr Srivastav's research on bringing breakthrough clean energy technologies to market earned her the CESifo Distinguished Research Affiliate Prize in 2023, which is an award given to a young economist for scientific originality. CESifo is one of the largest networks of economists in the world. She has also received an honourable mention from E-Axes 2023 Research Prize forum alongside winning the prestigious British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, a highly competitive grant that is offered to outstanding researchers to develop their pipeline of work. 

Dr Srivastav has published in high impact ​journals such as Science, Nature Climate Change, and Oxford Review of Economic Policy. She complements her peer-reviewed work with extensive public engagement. Dr Srivastav’s work is frequently referenced in The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC and news outlets across India. She is a top 5 author at The Conversation (as of July 2024) and has done a TEDx talk on the history of solar innovation. In terms of public service, Dr. Srivastav regularly submits evidence to UK parliament on renewable energy policy and was invited to be a judge for UChicago’s Market Shaping Accelerator led by Nobel Laureate, Michael Kremer, which aims to bring breakthrough clean technologies to market. At the Smith School, Dr. Srivastav leads the thinking on energy transitions and innovation in the Global South.

Prior to academia, Dr. Sugandha worked as an environmental and energy economist at Vivid Economics and ICRIER advising governments, private firms, and international organisations on a broad range of issues related to green industrial strategy, climate and energy policy, and natural resource management. She holds a DPhil in Environmental Economics from the University of Oxford, an MSc in Economics from LSE and a BSc. (Hons) from the University of Warwick. She received merit-based scholarships at each of these institutions to pursue her studies. She is originally from India but has also lived in Fiji Islands, Myanmar, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China, Iran and Italy before moving the UK.  

Dr. Sugandha's short-form writing can be found at her Substack, Net Zero Notes, which presents bite-sized versions of research for a general audience.