Bastien Fond

Please tell us about your research project.
My PhD thesis proposes a comparative study of the current development of wind energy in France, Germany, and the UK. It stems from my previous work on the French-German research project EnergiCorpus (EHESS Paris / Augsburg University) from 2018 to 2022. During this project exploring the public debates on energy transition since the 1970s, I gathered corpuses of newspaper articles on which my research is based. Now funded by a French-German research centre in Berlin, I supplement my cross-case analysis with fieldwork in France, Germany, and the UK – which is why I came to Oxford.

Could you please tell us a bit more about your scholarship/exchange programme?
I work at the Centre Marc Bloch, and I came here through a partnership between my research centre and the Maison Française d’Oxford. In that context, my stay during Michaelmas Term aims at conducting interviews in the UK and finalising a paper that I am currently writing.

First impressions of Oxford / the University?
I arrived during Noughth Week, so I was welcomed in a very warm back-to-school atmosphere. I was able to meet up with old friends and enjoy the last sunny days before getting started on my fieldwork.