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.
Property tax administration is the bedrock for effective revenue mobilisation, development, and good local governance for local governments. Yet administering property taxation continues to be a major problem, especially for many developing countries. Scholarly explanations for this poor state...
A recurrent theme in our research across Zimbabwe is the role of organised Christian religion in agriculture and rural livelihoods. The connection is not usually made. However, religious beliefs, practices and institutions have important influences, and these have changed over time. In the last...
The Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development (K4D) Programme, which started in 2016, came to an end in September 2022.
This K4D working paper reflects on the learning processes and approaches facilitated by this programme, through ‘learning journeys’ conducted in collaboration with...
At COP27 world leaders have failed to address the climate and livestock debate thus failing to diffuse the misleading and dangerous narratives villainising livestock for climate change. Instead, livestock and livestock keepers are key to ensuring food, income and social security in the Global...
For the third consecutive year, Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, has been included in the annual Highly Cited Researchers List that recognises the global influence of academics within their field. Ian Scoones is principal investigator of the ERC Advanced...
In this blog Stephen Collins, Consortium for Street Children’s Senior Legal and Advocacy Officer describes the contribution of the IDS-led ‘Child Labour: Action Innovation Research in South and Southern Asia’ programme (CLARISSA) to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Street Children, and...
On October 7, 2021, thousands of Newcastle United football fans gathered at the entrance of St. James’ Park. Across a sea of black and white Newcastle shirts, several supporters waved green flags bearing the Islamic testimony of faith: “there is no God but God. Muhammad is his prophet.”
A...
At COP27 world leaders have failed to address the climate and livestock debate thus failing to diffuse the misleading and dangerous narratives villainising livestock for climate change. Instead, livestock and livestock keepers are key to ensuring food, income and social security in the Global...
As global leaders from the world’s highest income countries met for the G20 in Bali this week, they had a pressing agenda. Record breaking heatwaves across Europe, floods in Pakistan displacing 33 million, conflict in Ukraine and an escalating global hunger crisis are just a few of the...
There has been great success in building toilets across the Global South. But the workforce and invisible infrastructures required to deliver safe sanitation for all receives much less attention, and sanitation workers still suffer severe discrimination.
We conduct a review of different support measures adopted by 59 countries as an immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic using an inclusive development lens across five key areas – health and safety, welfare, finance and credit, taxes and fees and structural measures.
Using the information...
Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan’s first female architect and pioneer of self-build design for the poorest communities has said that an expansion of her framework of community architecture is necessary to build disaster resilient communities in Pakistan, while speaking at the the IDS 2022 Annual...
16 November 2022
Why learn with us.
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).