February 4, 2022, is the deadline for manuscript submissions in ’Energies’ scientific journal, devoted to energy policy after the pandemic. Guest editor of the special issue is Dr. Liliana Proskuryakova — professor in ISSEK Laboratory for Science and Technology Studies.

’Energies’ is a peer-reviewed open access journal of related scientific research, technology development, engineering, and the studies in policy and management and is published semimonthly online by MDPI. The journal is indexed by the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Ei Compendex, Scopus and other databases.

Special issue of ’Energies’ — ’Smart Energy Policies in a Post-COVID-19 World’ belongs to the section ’Energy Economics and Policy’ and is devoted to energy transition, energy security, far-sighted investment and policy decisions, government support and recovery plans adopted in the view of the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a large-scale economic downturn with profound implications for the energy industry. A drop in energy consumption followed by a slow or more dynamic recovery in different countries challenged the resilience and sustainability of energy systems. These shocks revealed the urgence of energy policy interventions, cross-sectoral reforms, and new leadership for assuring the transition to a more secure and cleaner energy future.

Analytics and policy advice by international organizations — International Energy Agency, IRENA, World Energy Council — contribute to setting up the new post-pandemic energy agenda. Research contributions that started appearing in scientific literature focus on analyzing the implications of COVID-19 for the sustainable energy transitions policies: assessing the national stimulus plans and the impact of pandemic on energy consumption by sector or by fuel.

The Special Issue seeks contributions related to energy transition, energy security, far-sighted investment and policy decisions, government support and recovery plans adopted in the view of the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. We also welcome articles related to the medium- and long-term global climate and sustainability challenges and goals, as well as plausible and alternative scenarios to reach those goals in the framework of the post-COVID recovery.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Future energy studies, including foresights and forecasts, that take into account the new energy development trajectories
• The impact of pandemic on the global and national energy transition
• Comprehensive long-term energy transformation strategies at national and corporate levels
• Energy policies and energy systems stress testing
• The prospects for attaining global and national energy, climate, and sustainability goals while facing new challenges
• Approaches to predicting and anticipating future unexpected events and factors with low probability (also referred to as wild cards, weak signals, and black swans)

Submissions that have successfully passed the review process will be published online upon acceptance.

Manuscript submission information is presented on the special issue’s webpage.