NEW ENERGY ACADEMY - A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR PARTNERS OF THE EUROPEAN CLIMATE FOUNDATION IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE AND NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES

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Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Serbia Montenegro Kosovo North Macedonia Romania Hungary Ukraine Moldova Georgia Greece Croatia Slovenia

Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Serbia Montenegro Kosovo North Macedonia Romania Hungary Ukraine Moldova Georgia Greece Croatia Slovenia

Practical skills

Learning Community of Practice

Challenging the “Business as Usual”

Impressions from the New Energy Academy and Masterclass in 2023, 2024, and 2025

  • Everything was great, lots of new acquaintances, learning and working outside the office, and what especially left an impression on me was the series of new topics and ideas we discovered

    Iva Bulajic, New Energy Academy 2025 participant

  • “Everything was in place, on time, perfectly scheduled and very positive vibe - that was quite impressive.”

    Egzona Shala, Executive Director, Youth Ecological and Security Zone- EcoZ

  • “I’d like to thank ECF for inviting my organization and giving me this incredible opportunity to learn at this Energy Academy despite us being a very new grantee. Personally, I was super energized and motivated to learn, and my curiosity was triggered - so much that I could not stop listening to energy podcasts during the few hours of transit time."

    Yifang Slot Tang, Case Work and Research/ Asia Executive Coordination team, FIAN International

  • “It was a very motivating and inspiring meeting. Open and interesting people, with unique experience and desire to change the world for the better giving great hopes. The world of energy and climate issues (or rather opportunities), increasing the potential and capabilities of civil society after meeting seems to me even more exciting and promising. Thank you for this!”

    Anna Mazur, Communications Manager, Ecoclub

  • “Great experience, networking opportunities, interesting approach to energy transition. Amazing experience and very joyful meetings!”

    New Energy Academy 2023 participant

  • "Impressions and experience were great. The best thing is to meet all the good people who are very dedicated to the climate emergency, which was the centre of our communication. "

    Milica Paunović, EURACTIV Serbia

  • "Worth the time and participation for the good info, inspiring discussions and interesting group!"

    Mihallaq Qirjo, Director, REC Albania

  • It was way much better than I thought to be. Thank you! :)

    Áron Kubatovics, New Energy Academy 2025 participant

  • I really enjoyed the meeting, the program was alright, very well made with a good balance between theoretical and practical activities. Really enjoyed the psychological part, since it's my domain of interest.

    Vlad Ursu, New Energy Academy 2025 participant

  • Very well organized and structured, the atmosphere was very inspiring, emotional, joyful and positive. I just want to congratulate to all of you that were involved in organizing the event and that you have made us feel very nice.

    Filip Stojanovski, New Energy Academy 2025 participant

  • Really good planned and organized, especially considering diverse background of the participants.

    Gentiana Murati, New Energy Academy 2024 participant

  • It was super interesting, it gave me hope for a better future :)

    Rayna Popova, New Energy Academy 2024 participant

  • The lectures and field visits were very interesting. The topics were well chosen and covered the essentials. I personally had a great time and gained a lot of knowledge and new perspectives.

    Sajma Merdan, New Energy Academy 2024 participant

The New Energy Formats

Photos: ©RosinaPencheva

Registrations for the Forum 2026 will open soon

Open in 2026

New Energy Creators

The core focus of the program is to address some of the most challenging aspects of developing effective energy transition campaigns and projects that we identified during the previous editions of the NEA, namely:

  • How can energy transition campaigners effectively work with diverse people (even those they might not like or trust) to advance their efforts in the energy transition? 

  • How to deeply understand and engage diverse communities to change behaviors and mindsets successfully? 

During the program, the participants will learn and apply processes and tools related to prototyping, stakeholder engagement, and human-centered campaigning. They will experimentally develop a specific project while co-creating with their peers. 

Key milestones:

  • In-person meeting on 26-28 March 2026 (Skopje)

  • Online coaching, individual tasks, and online sessions: April-September 2026

  • Closing in-person meeting in October (dates and place TBC, back-to-back with the NEA Forum 2026

Apply until 14 Feb 2026!
WATCH THE INFO SESSION RECORDING

New Energy Forum

The New Energy Forum serves as a vibrant gathering for New Energy Academy alumni. This event moves beyond the traditional conference format, with a focus on co-creation, deep connections, and provocative conversations.

The Forum provides a dedicated space for exchanging good practices and building new partnerships. The agenda focuses on exploring regional challenges while identifying hands-on solutions and successful projects.

Past editions

New Energy Challenge

The New Energy Challenge - a two-day event designed as a variation of a 'hackathon' where participants engage in a rapid and collaborative search for concrete climate and energy solutions. The interactive format supported a carefully selected small group of alumni to develop their ideas into projects via testing, iterating, and prototyping in real time with the support of experienced mentors and peers. At the end of the workshop, all teams got the chance to pitch their ideas and get potential funding for them. The first edition of the Challenge took place in October 2025 in Zagreb.

New Energy Academy Masterclass

A more advanced practical program dedicated to the Alumni of the New Energy Academy. The first edition happened in December 2024 in Belgrade, Serbia.

  • Online sessions

  • Practical work on real-life projects

  • 1 live meeting

New Energy Academy

A practical program for middle and junior-level campaigners

  • Online technical sessions

  • Interactive, collaborative work on real projects

  • 2 in-person meetings

Learn more

IMPRESSIONS FROM THE NEW ENERGY ACADEMY

STUDY VISITS IN SLOVENIA IN 2023 AND IN SLOVENIA AND AUSTRIA IN 2025

Get in touch.

Let us know if you have questions or ideas for collaboration.