The Department of Sociology and Political Science has a research community engaged in studies linked to energy, resource management and sustainable development. The research community has considerable publishing activity, a large research network and strong relations with foreign institutions. They have extensive research activity connected to NTNU’s Strategic Research Areas, NTNU Energy and NTNU Oceans. The Department has interdisciplinary cooperation with the Industrial Ecology Programme (IndEcol) at NTNU, both in research and education.

Issues for future research are the political economy of renewable energy, structural changes in energy, political and institutional obstacles, the Green Switch, carbon taxes, and so forth. Climate-, energy- and development policy are also linked through research to energy security, new renewable energy technologies, ‘carbon capture’ and storage (CCS), and storage of CO2 (REDD+).

There is cooperation between this research community and the research community Political instability and armed conflicts on studies of the relationship between climate change and conflict.

The research community has a close interdisciplinary cooperation with research communities at NTNU Gløshaugen and SINTEF on studies of ocean and environment politics. They also have an international research network and cooperation on these issues. The research community has been granted external funding for projects, among them the project "Ocean Certain", financed by the EU.

Another research issue for this research community is a marine plan for land use and integrated coastal management which includes considerable social and economic components.