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Aoife Brophy

Departmental Research Lecturer in Innovation and Enterprise

  • aoife.brophy@sbs.ox.ac.uk

Saïd Business School
University of Oxford
Park End Street
Oxford
OX1 1HP

Profile

Aoife’s research focuses on understanding what systemic environmental challenges such as the climate crisis, and associated system transitions, mean for business.

Aoife holds a joint appointment between the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and Saïd Business School. She is Co-Investigator of Oxford Net Zero where she works closely with the engagement team developing a range of action research projects to drive ambitious climate action. She also leads the business model workstream of CO2RE which is an Oxford-led interdisciplinary consortium focused on evaluating economically, socially and environmentally scalable carbon dioxide removal options. 

Aoife is also Co-founder of the Sustainable and Inclusive Innovation Africa initiative which is focused on supporting start-ups across the African continent to accelerate progress towards sustainable development. The initiative builds on the ESRC-funded project RISE (Renewable Innovative and Scalable Electrification) for which Aoife was Principal Investigator from 2018 to 2020. 

Aoife was previously a senior researcher at the Group for Sustainability and Technology (SusTec) at ETH in Zurich. She received her PhD from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, her MA from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and her BA in European Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. 

Expertise: 

  • Business model innovation
  • Sustainable entrepreneurship
  • Sustainable business 

Research

Aoife’s research focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship for sustainable development. She is interested in novel approaches that can leverage the role of the private sector in addressing challenges such as the climate crisis. Her work focuses on understanding firstly why and how innovative approaches to addressing sustainable development challenges emerge, and secondly whether these approaches result in impact. Key questions include what kinds of policy and institutional environments are conducive to sustainable business models? How do ecosystems and standards emerge that can support sustainable entrepreneurship? How do entrepreneurs navigate the tensions between financial and environmental sustainability?  

Publications

Without mandated demand for greenhouse gas removal – high integrity GtCO2-scale global deployment will be jeopardized: insight from US economic policy 2020-23

  • Journal article
  • Applied Energy
  • Madison Cuthbertson,
  • Mark Workman,
  • Aoife Brophy

Development transitions for fossil fuel-producing low and lower–middle income countries in a carbon-constrained world

  • Journal article
  • Nature Energy
  • Vivien Foster,
  • Philipp A Trotter,
  • Sven Werner,
  • Melin Niedermayer,
  • Yacob Mulugetta,
  • Ploy Achakulwisut,
  • Aoife Brophy,
  • Navroz K Dubash,
  • Samuel Fankhauser,
  • Adam Hawkes,
  • Stephanie Hirmer,
  • Stuart Jenkins,
  • Siamak Loni,
  • Alexis McGivern,
  • Khamphone Nanthavong,
  • Benedict Probst,
  • Steve Pye,
  • Vladimir Russo,
  • Gregor Semieniuk,
  • Carlos Shenga,
  • Vignesh Sridharan,
  • Sugandha Srivastav,
  • Youba Sokona,
  • Lucas Somavilla Croxatto,
  • Pu Yang

Policy mixes for business model innovation: the case of off-grid energy for sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa

  • Journal article
  • Research Policy
  • Aoife Brophy

How climate policies can translate to tangible change: Evidence from eleven low- and lower-middle income countries

  • Journal article
  • Journal of Cleaner Production
  • Philipp A Trotter,
  • Imran Mannan,
  • Aoife Brophy,
  • Delight Sedzro,
  • Abdulmutalib Yussuff,
  • Francis Kemausuor,
  • Yacob Mulugetta

Towards people-private-public partnerships: An integrated community engagement model for capturing energy access needs

  • Journal article
  • Energy Research and Social Science
  • Bothwell Batidzirai,
  • Philipp A Trotter,
  • Aoife Brophy,
  • Susann Stritzke,
  • Alfred Moyo,
  • Peter Twesigye,
  • Akaraseth Puranasamriddhi,
  • Amos Madhlopa
See more publications

Engagement

Aoife regularly engages with companies and other organisations working on themes at the intersection between business and sustainable development for research and teaching. Some recent examples of engagement activities include:

Teaching

Aoife teaches a range of postgraduate courses with a focus on the intersection between strategy, innovation and sustainability:

Oxford Answers

Thought-leadership and insights for business leaders written by our Faculty and Associate Fellows.
View articles by Aoife.
 

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