The MASTS Energy Transitions Forum is delighted to host an open forum session with speakers:
- Martin Fyvie (Robert Gordon University): AI-Driven Workforce Planning for Offshore Energy Transitions
The shift from oil and gas to renewable energy creates major workforce challenges: who should be retrained, in what skills, and when? Using evolutionary AI methods applied to North Sea scenarios, we demonstrate how bi-level optimization can simultaneously address strategic training planning and tactical workforce allocation, revealing trade-offs between cost, operational continuity, and workforce stability. The analysis shows that AI-guided integrated planning has the capacity to reduce training expenditure by while maintaining operational capacity during sector transitions. Performed as part of the Data for Net Zero project, supporting the development of a Smart Energy Basin, we present our research on how evolutionary optimization and AI can be used to balance competing stakeholder priorities during energy sector transitions.
- Amy McCarron (University of Aberdeen): Just Marine Energy Transitions in Coastal Communities: Lessons from Orkney, the North East, and the Humber.
Coastal communities across the UK have experienced successive maritime and energy transitions, from fishing and whaling to oil and gas and now offshore renewables, each leaving long lasting social, economic and cultural imprints. Drawing on a Rapid Evidence Assessment of three UK case study regions - Orkney, North East Scotland and the Humber Estuary - we discuss how centralised governance, outward value flows and repeated boom–bust cycles have shaped vulnerability and perceptions of fairness over time. The evidence shows that justice in marine energy transitions depends on anticipating impacts, strengthening community influence, and ensuring that local people share meaningfully in the value generated at sea. By bringing together historical lessons and contemporary challenges, we explore how past transitions can guide more inclusive, place responsive transition pathways for coastal regions.
The session will feature two talks and then a live discussion with the chair(s), featuring questions from the audience.