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.
As the cities in South Asia transform into global or “world-class” cities, the lives of those who construct, repair, and maintain these cities are changing. In this collection of articles on repair and maintenance in South Asia, we foreground how the repairers and maintainers of Kolkata,...
The delivery of projects for the coproduction of services raises multiple questions about how different structural barriers prevent and hinder the participation of various sectors of the population. Intersectionality theory provides a critical lens to examine the delivery of such coproduction...
Amidst almost unstoppable contagion, many have hung their hopes on heat and humidity as a potential defence against contracting Covid-19. In the early months of the pandemic studies of SARS-CoV-2 suggested that the virus is transmitted less efficiently in higher temperatures or at higher rates...
Population growth, increasing prosperity and changing consumer habits globally are increasing demand for consumer electronics.
Further to this, rapid changes in technology, falling prices and consumer appetite for better products have exacerbated e-waste management challenges and seen millions...
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...
This rapid review draws on literature from academic, policy and non-governmental organisation sources.
There is a huge literature on climate governance issues in general, but less is known about effective support and the political-economy of adaptation. A large literature base and case studies...
The food system, we are told, is ‘broken’. The complex links between food system and major global concerns - climate change, biodiversity loss, malnutrition in all its forms, cruelty, injustice and suffering – have been forensically analysed, extensively reported on, and are increasingly...
A better understanding of the evidence on capacity and coordination of social assistance during crises and of the main knowledge gaps is key to identifying solutions to overcome capacity and coordination deficits – solutions that are fit-for-purpose in situations of protracted crisis.
This brief summarises the state of the evidence and debate, gaps in the evidence, and directions for research that emerge from the thematic paper on cash-plus in protracted crises characterised by conflict and fragility.
This brief gives an overview of the evidence, gaps and future directions for social assistance and climate resilience, with a particular focus on FCAS.
The increasing emphasis on reinforcing social protection in fragile contexts and the Grand Bargain ‘participation revolution’ workstream suggest the need for a fresh look at accountability frameworks and how they play out in practice for the people they aim to serve.
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).