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.
Natasha Maru worked with pastoralists in the Kutch region of Gujarat during her doctoral research with the PASTRES programme. In this video, she talks about the focus of her study and the methods she used, which pay attention to the relationships between mobility and time.
In this episode of the IDS podcast Between the Lines, IDS Director of Research, Peter Taylor interviews Anke Schwittay, Professor of Anthropology and Global Development at the University of Sussex. Anke is author of the book: Creative Universities: Reimagining Education for Global Challenges and...
IDS and Fundación Paraguaya have this month signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), cementing the growing relationship and collaboration between both organisations. Fundación Paraguaya is a Paraguayan non-governmental organization renowned globally for its work around social...
Pakistan architect Yasmeen Lari will discuss her self-build, zero carbon, affordable structures, which are now providing emergency shelter after the devastating Pakistan floods.
The Institute of Development Studies is proud to announce that Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan’s first female...
In this episode of Between the Lines, IDS Director of Research, Peter Taylor interviews Anke Schwittay, Professor of Anthropology and Global Development at the University of Sussex. Anke is author of the book: Creative Universities: Reimagining Education for Global Challenges and Alternative...
This launch of the new IDS Bulletin - Pandemic Perspectives: Why Different Voices and Views Matter - features the issue editors and article contributors speaking about the issue. They will discuss how this issue draws on experiences from the social science research projects around the world...
In an address to the 2022 World Antimicrobial Resistance Congress in Washington D.C. in September, Xavier Becerra, United States Secretary for Health and Human Services, described antimicrobial resistance as “…the second punch [after Covid-19] that gets those who are least prepared, the most...
International Online Conference on Climate Change and Agrarian Justice - with IDS Fellow Ian Scoones
Dates: 26-29 September 2022 Time: 13.00 - 15.30 CAT/ CET each day
The way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change is a vital focus for both thinking and action....
The Kalbelia community in Rajasthan, known as the snake charmer tribe, have slowly lost their artistic, performance-based livelihoods due to the draconian Criminal Tribes Act. This has left the tribe severely marginalised, struggling to survive and largely practising open defecation. This blog...
Kano city has nearly 1,400 Qur’anic schools called “Tsangaya”, teaching about 150,000 boys aged between 5-14 years known as “Almajiris”. Vitally, this blog calls for Tsangaya schools to be included in sanitation and hygiene programmes that schools in the formal educational system in...
The Covid-19 pandemic has put the spotlight back on global value chains (GVCs) as a driver of economic growth, industrial exports, and job creation. GVC trade differs from traditional trade, with the former involving intensive firm-to-firm interactions, characterised by contracting and...
This seminar discusses gender Mainstreaming in Trade Agreements. Even though we are yet to see concrete evidence of benefits that gender mainstreaming in trade agreements can have, more and more countries are embracing this approach. The seminar is fifth in the IDS seminar series on inclusive...
22 September 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).