The System Change HIVE will explore and communicate visions of better lives to inform public thinking and work towards fairer systems that safeguard life-support systems and prioritise well-being and justice.
Future Agricultures is a network of researchers on agriculture and food policy in Africa, formed of more than 100 people working in 12 countries across Africa and in Europe.
The ESRC STEPS Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) is an interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement centre.
The climate is changing faster than we are. The danger of triggering irreversible environmental damage that spirals, feeding off itself, means that winning too slowly is the same as losing. That’s why rapid, transformative changes are called for to prevent climate breakdown and create the...
Across the world, authoritarian, populist politics has made remarkable gains in recent years. Populist leaders have exploited poverty, inequalities, resentment and uncertainty to attract support and take power. The problems they exploit are most deeply felt in rural areas, and...
9 February 2022
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report is now published, and as you might expect, concerns about climate change and ecological collapse are strongly featured. Based on the views of 750 ‘global experts and decision makers’, along with facts, figures and projections from various...
22 January 2020
If the first few weeks of 2020 are anything to go by, this year looks set to be a turbulent one. Wildfires in Australia have caused devastation. Indonesia is shocked by severe flooding in its capital. The latest chapter in conflict in the Middle East threatens to escalate, but nobody knows what...
21 January 2020
This week, the UN Global Climate Summit meets in New York, calling global leaders to describe how they will meet the challenge of disruptive climate change. The long term target for countries is to reach net zero emissions by 2050. This is a challenge for all countries, including in...
23 September 2019
The Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges of Transformation: Chapter 12
Current crises that link nature with human agency are increasingly described as ‘apocalyptic’, and people faced with uncertain futures continue to express their doubts, fears and hopes in spiritual terms. Religious language and practice provide ways to deal with strong emotions about...
4 December 2020
This free book highlights some of the major findings that have emerged over the last decade of the STEPS Centre’s research on sustainable agriculture.
14 March 2017
A set of 11 new ‘stories of change’ charts the journey of the ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre since 2006 through major debates and movements on sustainability. © Image: Marcus Mailov (cc by-nc-nd 2.0) Since being co-founded by...
29 June 2022
Five titles from the STEPS Centre’s Pathways to Sustainability book series have been made open access for the first time, making them freely available to download, read and share. The new open access titles include the first comprehensive discussion of the pathways approach, Dynamic...
30 March 2022
The ESRC STEPS Centre has made its free online course on Pathways to Sustainability available with new video lectures and reading lists. The course introduces a set of ideas, approaches, cases and methods for critical research and action on sustainability, building on the STEPS Centre’s work....
24 February 2022
This final event of the ESRC STEPS Centre brings together friends, collaborators and networks from around the world. We will explore the major challenges for sustainability in the present moment, reflect on lessons from the past fifteen years, and discuss future possibilities, plans and...