Paper ‘A research agenda to support the achievement of clean cooking for all’ launched in Perspective in Joule

A new paper ‘A research agenda to support the achievement of clean cooking for all’ has been released today in Perspective in Joule. The paper is a multi-author collaboration, bringing together multiple organisations and research institutes across the globe including the UKaid (FCDO) funded Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme.

Achieving universal access to clean cooking is essential for improving health, equality, and environmental sustainability outcomes. However, with current trends 1.8 billion people are still projected to remain without clean cooking access in 2030. Research can support the specification of evidence-based clean cooking strategies that are tailored to local realities. In the paper, the authors propose a research agenda to accelerate clean cooking transitions. Key areas of focus include enhancing modern and clean technologies, developing better and more inclusive planning tools, integrating co-benefits, addressing behavioral and affordability challenges (including those arising from asymmetric gendered intra-household bargaining power), fostering innovative policy, business and financing models, as well as understanding the political economy of clean cooking. For such research to be effective in empowering local communities and ensuring sustainable outcomes, attention to clean cooking needs to be more effectively integrated into educational curricula and embody the principles of interdisciplinary and open science. Collaborative efforts from global stakeholders are imperative to drive this transition and achieve significant benefits across sustainable development spheres.

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Image copyright: Fuso Nerini et al., A research agenda to support the achievement of clean cooking for all, Joule (2026), https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2026.102382