Dominic Glover specialises in the study of technology and processes of socio-technical change, principally in food systems, agriculture, and small-scale farming contexts in the global South. He has over two decades of experience in research, policy analysis, communication and teaching on technology, innovation, governance and policy processes relating to agriculture, biotechnology, rice production, rural development, and sustainability.
Dominic is recognised internationally for his past work on the promotion and uptake of transgenic crops (principally Bt cotton in India and Golden Rice in the Philippines), and on the emergence and spread of alternative rice cultivation methods and practices, with a primary focus on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in India, Nepal and Madagascar and on the development of ‘heirloom’ rice production in the Philippines.
Dominic has also published a series of papers exploring conceptual, theoretical and methodological ways to understand technology and analyse technological change. This work advocates an agent-centred view on technological practitioners and their innovations, and the relationships and interactions between formal scientific research, plant breeding and technical inventions on one hand, and the locally situated knowledges, management skills, and creative adaptations of farmers on the other.
Dominic has designed, planned, carried out, led and supervised research in India, Nepal, the Philippines, Madagascar, Kenya and Ethiopia. His research is interdisciplinary and he uses mostly qualitative mixed methods, including technographic, ethnographic and participatory approaches, as well as household surveys. He also has expertise in strategic foresight and experience with theory-based methods of impact evaluation (contribution analysis and realist evaluation). Following formal training in law, international political economy and development studies, his work nowadays draws upon and intersects with various fields, including science and technology studies (STS), geography, anthropology, rural sociology, and history of science and technology. He has personal interests in design, architecture, urban planning and transportation, which he is keen to develop further in his academic research and teaching.
Dominic has been a Fellow at IDS since May 2014. He was also based at IDS from 2000 to 2008, during which time he completed his PhD on the role of transnational biotechnology corporations in the development and commercialisation of transgenic crops in developing countries. He then worked for six years as a post-doc at Wageningen University in the Netherlands (2008—2014). He is a current member of the IDS Bulletin editorial advisory group. Dominic has served as an advisor and editor at SciDev.Net, as a member of a selection panel for the Swedish funding agency, Formas, and as a consultant to UNEP, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES—Food), the FAO, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
