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.
Sri Lanka development slide from a 1970s basic needs success to external debt default in 2022 is merits attention. So too is its rapid IMF economic stabilisation and its trade/aid ties with India during global trade uncertainty. This public lecture analyses the causes of Sri Lanka’s crisis and...
Join us for this in-person and online event that explores how top-down modes of development are challenged from below.
This event follows from an earlier event on the same theme, held on 11 December 2024 (details here).
The global expansion of authoritarian rule is witnessing a brand...
Join us for a special event to celebrate the contribution that Raphie Kaplinsky has made to development studies.
Raphie Kaplinsky worked at the IDS for more than three decades, and is currently an Emeritus Professorial Fellow at the Institute. Beginning in the early 1970s, Raphie’s...
Join us for a panel that will feature a facilitated discussion between practitioners, donors and researchers on the appropriate scope and the ways in which social protection can support growth and livelihoods in crises, including through strengthening linkages with peacebuilding actors and...
Join us for a facilitated policy panel to debate how to make the political case for investing in social protection in settings of crises at a time of aid rupture.
Wrestling with questions such as: How can existing investments in systems be maintained and adapted during crises? How can...
Join us for an overview and key findings from Better Assistance in Crises (BASIC) Research, a five-year programme that has explored how international, national and local actors can work together to improve combined social protection and humanitarian responses to protracted crises.
As an...
Pathways to Development (Path2Dev) is a multidisciplinary conference that brings together empirical and historical research by economists, political scientists, sociologists, legal and constitutional scholars, and law and policy reform experts, within and outside Pakistan, to document and...
Notions of resource conservation historically gained little attention in Ghanaian agriculture, with the prominent paradigm promoting growth at all costs. This webinar considers how far approaches prioritising productivity and sustainability may overlap in the sector, and the potential role of...
This social science commissioned report explores the potential for a social accountability approach to accelerate nature recovery in the UK context. It explores how far elements of this already exist within nature recovery approaches and what can be built on.
Social accountability refers to...
From 16 to 18 September 2025, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) will be hosting an international conference organised by the BASIC (Better Assistance in Crises) Research programme, on ‘Social and Humanitarian Assistance in Crises: agendas, ambitions and aspirations for more...
This Policy Briefing synthesises emerging lessons from research conducted by the Better Assistance in Crises (BASIC) Research programme, predominantly in the northeastern region of the country (which comprises Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states). It showcases how social...
Crises, including conflicts, natural hazard related disasters, and health emergencies, are on the rise and becoming increasingly complex. Marginalised and socially excluded groups, such as people with disabilities, are disproportionally affected by crises and are often excluded from the...
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).