The two founders of the widely known energy research work in SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research both died in the late summer.
Professor John Surrey passed away on 8 August after struggling with illness for some years. An economist originally from LSE, John came to SPRU in 1969, following Chris Freeman, the founding director of SPRU, from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research.
He established an energy policy research activity which was at the time unique in the country, four years ahead of the first oil crisis of 1973.
He soon recruited John Chesshire and subsequently a large team of researchers, several of whom have subsequently, following his generous mentoring, gone on to achieve professorial status.
John's earlier career had also included British Railways and the civil service and his work always bore the hallmark of political economy rather than a narrow interpretation of economics. He published an influential book with Lesley Cook (from the Sussex Economics department) in 1977 on energy policy and after many other wide-ranging publications over the next two decades edited a well-received collection in 1996 on The British Electricity Experiment.
He had a massive influence on the evolution of social science-based energy research in the UK and succeeded, with John Chesshire, in winning SPRU a flow of large ESRC research centre grants continuously from 1979 till 1997.
He always aimed his work at the policy system as well as the academic community and actively engaged in national and European energy policy processes.
While he worked as an adviser to both Government and Parliament he always preferred the scrutiny role of Parliament and served as Specialist Adviser to countless Parliamentary Select Committee inquiries on energy subjects. He had real influence on the culture and practice of UK energy policy.
Professor John Chesshire OBE died on 12 September at the age of 62, after a short but devastating illness brought on by lung cancer.
John was the first of John Surrey's many recruits to the Energy group of SPRU and took over its leadership in 1990, having worked closely with John Surrey for over 25 years.
He spent his early working life as an industrial economic adviser to the TUC. A life-long Fabian, he was always deeply interested in the distributional consequences of energy and other economic policy. While his economic analysis was always rigorous, he always wanted his work to make an impact on public policy, and his great specialisation was in the analysis of energy demand and energy conservation.
This was especially true in relation to the 'fuel poor', for whom he researched and campaigned with something close to ferocity. His OBE was in recognition of his huge contribution to the improvement of energy efficiency and his tireless campaigning for a better deal for the 'fuel poor'.
In the early years at SPRU, his major academic contribution was the dull-sounding but vitally important 'boiler study', which greatly increased understanding of how 20% of UK energy was used. This was a huge, ambitious empirical project collecting and analysing thousands of items of data before personal computers had been invented.
John was later an influential figure in the analysis of the big energy privatisations that took place between 1986 and 1996.
John took early retirement from the University in 2000 but this in no way diminished his high levels of energy and activity.
Having already been deeply engaged in the world of energy policy - like John Surrey he was Specialist Adviser to many Parliamentary Select Committee inquiries from the late 1970s onwards - he began a career, closely following on from his university work, in public-sector consultancy.
Professor Gordon MacKerron, SPRU