Our interdisciplinary research explores how pathways to sustainability, green transformations and equitable access to resources such as land, water and food can be achieved and help us meet the environmental as well as human development-related goals of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.
Our work builds on a long tradition of critical social science engagement with environmental issues and resource politics in collaboration with partners globally. It explores how pathways to sustainability are shaped by political-economic and social processes, and understands how they are driven by technology, markets, states and citizens. Our research sheds new light on how we can achieve green transformations that move us from fossil fuel to renewable energy, from throw-away to circular economies. It addresses the politics of sustainability, and understands how transformations occur at local levels as well as global, in both rural and urban settings, and be led by citizens as well as national governments. In doing so, it shines a light on how sustainable resource use, consumption and production is shaped by issues such as gender, livelihoods and politics.
The ESRC STEPS Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) is an interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement centre.
Following Israel’s declaration on 8 October 2023 of a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, a food crisis rapidly developed. But did the situation deteriorate into a full-blown famine? A series of food security assessments conducted by the international community in 2023-24 will be analysed...
While switching from fossil fuels to clean energy addresses the climate crisis and offers development opportunities, opposition to the transition is rife. The panel will discuss the pitfalls of clean energy transition, and the drivers thereof, and strategies to inform policy and...
Join us for the first event in our new Sussex Development Lecture series on politics, power and hope, with guest lecturer Dr Danny Sriskandarajah speaking about the themes from his new book Power to the People: Use your voice, change the world.
Danny Sriskandarajah learned the value of...
A book launch and panel discussion on the lives and work of artists, activists and academics engaged in the struggle for life-saving HIV treatment in and beyond South Africa.
Join us for this event with Elizabeth Mills, author of the new book HIV, Gender and the Politics of Medicine and former...
In this talk, Ian Scoones will introduce his new book, Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World (Polity Books, 2024).
Uncertainties are everywhere. Whether it’s climate change, financial volatility, pandemic outbreaks or new technologies, we don’t know what the...
In recent years, many governments in the Global South have integrated Grievance Redress Mechanisms (GRMs) into their governance structures to monitor and improve the provision of services. However, the implementation on the ground of these GRMs has yet to be fully explored. This study sought to...
A five-year study with child workers in Bangladesh’s growing leather industry has uncovered children working in dangerous and harmful conditions at every stage of leather processing and production, driven by the need to support their families financially.
Children as young as eight,...
MA Development Studies student Deep Mehta shares his honest reflections about his year with us – including the challenges and frictions caused when your values, beliefs and opinions and not always aligned with those who you are studying with.
Much of what I say here overlaps with what...
The CLARISSA programme has produced multiple research reports, and the Hard Labour website, which reproduces some of the stories about children’s lives, their days, the businesses they work in, and the neighbourhoods they live in. This paper synthesises this detailed evidence landscape to draw...
Sanitation is one of the most off-track Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the WHO and UNICEF reporting that 3.8 billion people still lacking access to safely managed sanitation.
In many low- and middle-income countries, centralised and capital-intensive sanitation and waste...
Mega-Infrastructure Projects (MIPs) represent a central element of globalized development. MIPs like the Chinese driven ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) include large-scale agrarian, road, rail, port and energy networks. They are complex ventures involving international capital and multiple...
Early in September, two summits of continental importance were held to reflect and consider Africa’s future. The first was the 2024 African Food Systems Forum (AFSForum2024) held in Kigali and the other was the inaugural Africa Urban Forum on “Sustainable Urbanization for Africa’s...
In an extraordinary time of challenge and change, we use more than 50 years of expertise to transform development approaches that create more equitable and sustainable futures. The work you do with us will help make progressive change towards universal development; to build and connect solidarities for collective action, locally and globally. The University of Sussex has been ranked 1st in the world for Development Studies for the past five years (QS World University Rankings by Subject).