Research Interests
The focus of my research has been on examining the barriers and opportunities to diffusing best practices and policies of energy transitions in the built environment in several European cities by drawing on a wide range of conceptual frameworks from social sciences.
I am involved in the cross-faculty and interdisciplinary research project EMPOWER funded by UiO: Energy and Environment. As part of the WP1, I contribute to providing a sustainability framework for the project by conducting a comprehensive literature review aimed at identifying environmental and social impacts of electric vehicle (EV) batteries across lifecycle phases. I am currently working on the project entitled “Challenges and risks of end-of-life management of electric vehicles batteries in Norway: Spydeberg industrial site in Indre Østfold Municipality”. I have conducted desk study of the Norwegian local daily newspaper articles and in-depth interviews with actors across different domains and battery value chain.
I have been awarded a visiting research fellowship (October 2024 - February 2025) at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society (IAS-STS) at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria. Largely based on the results of my literature review, I will work with my proposed research project "The role of electric vehicle batteries in enhancing sector coupling for low-carbon urban energy transitions: energy-mobility-digitalisation nexus".
Teaching
Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainability: A Toolkit for the Energy Transition (TEK9450), University of Oslo, Norway (Co-designing and lecturing since June 2023).
Energy efficiency and Sustainability, ISBA University of Cooperative Education, Freiburg, Germany (Designing and lecturing October 2018-March 2023).
Urban environmental planning in response to climate change, University College Freiburg, University of Freiburg, Germany (Designing and lecturing March 2019-April 2020).
Education
Technical University of Dortmund, 2007, PhD in Urban Planning
University of Stockholm, MSc in Business Administration and Economics
University of Stockholm, BSc in Business Administration
Tags:
Sustainability Transitions,
Sustainable Batteries,
Electromobility,
Urban Energy Transitions,
Qualitative Social Sciences Research,
Institutional Analysis,
Institutional Entrepreneurship,
Policy Mix Instruments
Publications
Mahzouni, Arian, and Maja van der Velden (2026). A Lifecycle Perspective to Environmental and Social Impacts of Electric Vehicle Batteries: A Literature Review. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 31 (9): 175. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-026-02706-0
Mahzouni, A. (2026). The Role of Electric Vehicle Batteries in Building Integrated Energy System of Tomorrow: The Sector Coupling Innovations in the Cities of Freiburg and Graz. pp 195–215 in: Omrani, N., Schiavone, F., Appio, F.P., Ballatore, M., Ben Tahar, Y. (eds) Human-Machine Synergy and the Digital Future - Exploring Collaboration and Competition, Vol 2. DTS2025 2025. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-20432-5_18
Mahzouni, A. (2025). Energy infrastructure planning for positive energy city districts: The sector-coupling pathways for the new city district of Dietenbach in Freiburg, Germany. In S. Sareen, P. O. Eikeland, & T. H. Jackson Inderberg (Eds.), Are Low-Carbon Futures Decentralised? The Governance of Collective Electricity Systems (pp. 145–155). Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. Published on 19 August 2025.
Mahzouni, A. (2022). Reducing Mobility-Related Energy Use in Future Cites: The Planning Process for Urban Mobility in the City-District of Dietenbach in Freiburg, Germany. Chapter 22 In K. Araujo (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Energy Transitions. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Published on 29 December 2022, website url.
Mahzouni, A. (2019). Towards an Analytical Framework for Sociotechnical Urban Retrofit: Cities in the Upper Rhine Region. In P. Hamman & S. Vuilleumier (Eds.), Sustainability Research in the Upper Rhine Region: Concepts and Case Studies (pp. 269–288). Presses universitaires de Strasbourg (PUS), Strasbourg.
Mahzouni, A. (2019). The role of institutional entrepreneurship in emerging energy communities: The town of St. Peter in Germany. Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 107(2019), 297–308. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2019.03.011
Mahzouni, A. (2019). The institutional challenges of scaling-up housing retrofit: the Swiss cities of Basel and Sion. Journal of Facilities, 37(11/12), 780–798. http://doi.org/10.1108/F-02-2017-0025
Mahzouni, A. (2018). Urban brownfield redevelopment and energy transition pathways: A review of planning policies and practices in Freiburg. Journal of Cleaner Production, 195(2018), 1476–1486. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.116
Mahzouni, A. (2017). The role of co-building groups in creating sustainable buildings and neighbourhoods: lessons from Freiburg in Germany. In: M. Young (ed.), AMPS Proceedings Series 9. Living and Sustainability: An Environmental Critique of Design and Building Practices, Locally and Globally. London South Bank University, London, 08 – 09 February (2017). pp. [394-402].
Mahzouni, A. (2015). The Policy Mix for Sustainable Urban Transition: The city district of Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm. Environmental Policy and Governance, 25(4), 288–302. http://doi.org/10.1002/eet.1688
Mahzouni, A. (2015) Book review of “The politics and institutions of global energy governance” by Thijs Van de Graaf. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 208pp. Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, 16 (2), 184-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/178359171501600207
Mahzouni, A. (2013). The missing link between urban and rural development: Lessons from Iraqi Kurdistan Region. In: Peripheralization: The Making of Spatial Dependencies and Social Injustice, pp.121-144. Matthias Naumann and Andrea Fischer-Tahir (eds.). Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2013.
Mahzouni, A. (2011). Institutionalization of Peace and Dialogue among the Riparian Stakeholders of the Tigris River Basin (Iran/Iraq). Working paper. Kurdistan Institution for Strategic Studies and Scientific Research (KISSR). Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
Mahzouni, A. (2008). Participatory Local Governance for Sustainable Community-Driven Development: The Case of the Rural Periphery in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. Doctoral Thesis, 201 pages, Technical University of Dortmund. https://eldorado.tu-dortmund.de/handle/2003/25219
Published
Jan. 31, 2024 3:52 PM
- Last modified
Sep. 17, 2026 11:07 AM
