Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative
Energy Club Overview
The Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) has roughly 2,000 student members and is one of the largest student-run energy clubs in the country. BERC gives its members resources to connect, learn, and collaborate on important energy and resource topics. Its members can connect through their departmental liaisons or through a number of online resources hosted by Energy Folks, including the blog, calendar, and job board. Members learn about exciting trends and technologies in energy through events such as the annual BERC Energy Summit (video above), Resources Roundtable, and regular "BERCshops". Finally, collaboration occurs through the clubs consulting program (BERC Innovative Solutions or BIS), hackathons, and other types of innovative programs.
BERC has two entirely volunteer-led teams that are the workhorses of the club, the executive team and the leadership team. The BERC exec team has eight positions: Co-President (from business school), Co-President (not from business school), VP Sponsorship, VP Finance, VP Marketing, VP Events and Programs, VP Summit, and VP Membership. The organizational structure for the executive team and leadership team is shown below.
Energy Club Overview
The Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) has roughly 2,000 student members and is one of the largest student-run energy clubs in the country. BERC gives its members resources to connect, learn, and collaborate on important energy and resource topics. Its members can connect through their departmental liaisons or through a number of online resources hosted by Energy Folks, including the blog, calendar, and job board. Members learn about exciting trends and technologies in energy through events such as the annual BERC Energy Summit (video above), Resources Roundtable, and regular "BERCshops". Finally, collaboration occurs through the clubs consulting program (BERC Innovative Solutions or BIS), hackathons, and other types of innovative programs.
BERC has two entirely volunteer-led teams that are the workhorses of the club, the executive team and the leadership team. The BERC exec team has eight positions: Co-President (from business school), Co-President (not from business school), VP Sponsorship, VP Finance, VP Marketing, VP Events and Programs, VP Summit, and VP Membership. The organizational structure for the executive team and leadership team is shown below.
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UC Berkeley students by discipline Science and engineering 32% Business and economics 13% Law and policy 10% Natural resource studies 4% Architecture and planning 3% Other 39% |
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Reflective Energy: How BERC can increase its impact
This year, BERC is planning a number of initiatives to increase its impact even further.
This year, BERC is planning a number of initiatives to increase its impact even further.
- BERC Energy Summit: BERC puts on a very large Energy Summit every year in the fall. This year BERC is pushing it to a spring event to have time to review its objectives for the event, its strategy for fundraising and organizing, and its overall contribution to BERC as a whole.
- Membership data: BERC has many members, but it has been difficult to know how many exactly and what departments they are from, and keep track of this . This year, BERC is planning to do a data initiative to track number of members, events attended, and program involvement, pulling data from its existing Energy Folks database (Salesforce), Eventbrite, LinkedIn, and direct member outreach.
University background: UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley is a public university of around 36,000 students with roughly 26,000 undergraduates and 10,000 graduates. With a very strong research presence, UC Berkeley produces more PhD's than any other university annually. The campus also has the benefit of being home to top professional graduate programs in business, public policy, and law. Situated in the San Francisco Bay Area, the university benefits from being a part of a local energy cluster, where many established private companies and young start-up companies are based. Additionally, the California Public Utilities Commission, California Energy Commission, and California State Legislature are all leading the state in forming one of the nation's strongest portfolio's of low-carbon and renewable energy legislation.
UC Berkeley has a very active energy community, both in terms of research and academics. With the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory located just above campus, energy research is active throughout campus from materials science and chemistry. The campus houses major research institutes on energy including the Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute (BECI), Energy Institute at Haas (business), Energy Biosciences Institute (chemistry and chemical engineering), Center for Environmental Public Policy (public policy), and the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment (law). On the curricular side, UC Berkeley has a specific energy engineering major and is home to the Energy & Resources Group, a department dating back to the 1970's focusing on interdisciplinary studies in energy and resources. The university has dozens of courses on energy, the most notable of which are Energy & Society (a survey course taught by ERG Professor Dan Kammen), Energy and Environmental Markets (taught by the Energy Institute's Severin Borenstein), and Cleantech to Market (a business school class teaching about the business development that accompanies early stage technology development in clean energy).
UC Berkeley is a public university of around 36,000 students with roughly 26,000 undergraduates and 10,000 graduates. With a very strong research presence, UC Berkeley produces more PhD's than any other university annually. The campus also has the benefit of being home to top professional graduate programs in business, public policy, and law. Situated in the San Francisco Bay Area, the university benefits from being a part of a local energy cluster, where many established private companies and young start-up companies are based. Additionally, the California Public Utilities Commission, California Energy Commission, and California State Legislature are all leading the state in forming one of the nation's strongest portfolio's of low-carbon and renewable energy legislation.
UC Berkeley has a very active energy community, both in terms of research and academics. With the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory located just above campus, energy research is active throughout campus from materials science and chemistry. The campus houses major research institutes on energy including the Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute (BECI), Energy Institute at Haas (business), Energy Biosciences Institute (chemistry and chemical engineering), Center for Environmental Public Policy (public policy), and the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment (law). On the curricular side, UC Berkeley has a specific energy engineering major and is home to the Energy & Resources Group, a department dating back to the 1970's focusing on interdisciplinary studies in energy and resources. The university has dozens of courses on energy, the most notable of which are Energy & Society (a survey course taught by ERG Professor Dan Kammen), Energy and Environmental Markets (taught by the Energy Institute's Severin Borenstein), and Cleantech to Market (a business school class teaching about the business development that accompanies early stage technology development in clean energy).