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.
Over the last four weeks, a blog series has asked what is the best way to respond to ‘drought’? This is an important question for a country like Zimbabwe, and with climate change the question will become even more important. The answer though is not obvious.
New research shows how a World Health Organization concept fuelled online conspiracy theories before, during and after Covid-19 – and why they must be taken seriously for disease preparedness plans.
Long before Covid-19, the global health community was predicting ‘a serious...
The Alps have always been a destination for herders on the transhumance. Due to the prevailing rocky nature, Alpine anthropology, endowed with particular historical sensitivity, has long since deconstructed the image of a geographical context perceived as isolated over the centuries and...
As scientific, policy and public debate around Covid-19 gradually shifts its focus to recovery and future pandemic preparedness, a seemingly new pandemic threat has emerged on the world stage. A meeting of the WHO R&D Roadmap was held on 2-3 June to discuss the latest global infectious...
This is the 27th monthly Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development (K4D) Programme's Humanitarian Evidence Summary (HUMES), signposting to the latest relevant evidence and discourse on humanitarian action to inform and support their response.
It is the result of one day of work per month...
Digital financial services (DFS) have expanded rapidly over the last decade, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. They have been accompanied by claims that they can alleviate poverty, empower women, help businesses grow, and improve macroeconomic outcomes and government effectiveness. As they...
The Covid-19 pandemic has altered the perception, understanding and experience of food insecurity in the UK. While the issue of food insecurity is not new, the pandemic brought about a dramatic increase in both the need and demand for emergency food aid, driven by difficulties in accessibility,...
Leading thinkers from Africa, South Asia and Latin America are working with an international research team to explore how research evidence and diverse types of knowledge can promote safer, healthier and more equitable lives for all.
They have identified four modes of knowledge translation that...
In this paper we review the relationship between a humanitarian response to initial displacement and longer-term development planning, as well as the recent range of research and policy responses in this field.
Amidst calls for the decolonisation of the social sciences, histories of economic knowledge centred in the Global South can help reflect on what this might mean in practice. The British Library for Development Studies hosts a world-leading collection of economists’ writings from Asia, Africa...
Objective: To evaluate the common industry claim
that higher tobacco taxation leads to higher levels of
smuggling, particularly in a limited state capacity setting.
Design: This paper evaluates the effects of a tobacco
tax increase in Sierra Leone on smuggling by using gap
analyses. Its...
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).