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.
Join us for this seminar that explores different kinds of power relationships that influence people’s access to resources, livelihood options and sustainability outcomes.
This seminar looks at a case study of aquaculture production systems in northern Vietnam and the power relationships...
We are delighted to invite you to attend the IDS launch of The Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health (LCGGH) report.
The rollback in gender rights and challenges to global health organisations around the world threatens to reverse decades of progress on global health. This...
Fifty years ago this year, Dr Budd Hall, then a visiting fellow at IDS, wrote what has come to be known the first published journal article on the idea of participatory research (PR). Since then, bringing together many different currents and influencers, PR has emerged as a major strategy and...
Join us for this talk by Indian seed sovereignty scholar and activist Dr. Debal Deb.
Neolithic farmers created all the cultivated crop species from their wild progenitors. Generations of pre-industrial farmers since the Neolithic era have subsequently developed a legion of crop landraces,...
Vaccine hoarding during the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the urgent need for low- and middle-income countries to overcome technological dependency – not only to improve competitiveness and resilience but also to enhance global crisis response. Development scholarship has long emphasised the...
The Institute of Development Studies (IDS), in partnership with the University of Sussex, has been ranked first in the world for Development Studies in the QS World University Rankings for the ninth consecutive year. Together with the University of Sussex, we provide 29 postgraduate degrees...
I was coming out of a lecture that I was giving to IDS masters’ students on struggles against anti-gender backlash by women’s groups when I saw the news: 15 Palestinian medical workers brutally killed and buried in a mass grave by Israel. My blood boiled, and I wished that I could do...
A poverty line of $6.85 a day, as used by the World Bank, indicates a substantial level of deprivation, impacting the lives of billions globally. Indeed, nearly half of the World’s population falls into this category. So, if poverty is something we all want to see less of, why does it prove so...
Can principles of Community-led Development define the future of our sector? By introducing their recent publication, We Power our Own Change, authors in this seminar will reflect on the practices, insights, and the potential principles of Community-led Development and what it holds for the...
Join us for the launch of ‘Food Fight’ – a book by food and nutrition expert Stuart Gillespie that shines a light on the evolution of our global food system from its origins in colonial plunder through the last fifty years of neoliberalism, before concluding with a set of actions to put...
What constitutes ‘success’ if you have land in the A1 land reform areas in Zimbabwe? This is the question we have been asking of local residents across our study sites in Mazowe, Gutu, Masvingo and Matobo districts. We have held 11 workshops in different sites, involving around 208 people...
As we navigate a deeply uncertain global environment, in which the rules-based order is being abandoned, the stakes have never been higher for taking an evidence-informed approach to policy and implementation.
All those who seek to inform policy and interventions with evidence are under...
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).