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.
During the 1980s, new concepts and policies have emerged to explain and combat poverty, inequality, and social disintegration. Within Europe, 'social exclusion' has rapidly become part of debates on deprivation.
Gender and Development' policies have been promoted in development organizations for almost three decades now, but often the feminist ambitions for these policies fall away as they are processed through development institutions.
Information is the glue that binds our complex and fast changing world together and it is the key to changing long established patterns of social behaviour. Information, especially on environmental management for sustainable development, can provide support to countries and communities for an...
This bibliographic search was prepared by BRIDGE for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA). The bibliography is intended as background information for a gender profile of Nicaragua focused on the sectors: health; agriculture; transport and infrastructure environment; democratic...
There is mounting evidence that clustering and networking help small firms to compete and grow. By working together, firms can gain the benefits of collective efficiency, enabling them to challenge larger competitors and break into national and global markets.
This paper examines agricultural intensification as a strategy for achieving sustainable livelihoods, comparing evidence from a number of areas that have undergone such a process - in particular, the introduction of Green Revolution methods.
The article focuses on the interface between water resources management and social and power relations. It shows that the propagators of both macro and micro‐level water interventions have flawed notions of local institutions and the ‘community’. As a result, new water interventions could...
This survey critically examines the development studies literature dealing with the connections between social structure, politics and the emergence or development of ‘indigenous’ capitalism in developing countries. This literature has focused mainly on the apparent absence or weakness of...
As a result of China's transition to a socialist market economy, its rural health services have undergone many of the changes commonly associated with health sector reform. These have included a decreased reliance on state funding, decentralisation of public health services, increased autonomy...
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).