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.
The first part of this study, conducted by Yemen Policy Center in December 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic in Yemen, presented the factors that prevented security institutions from playing a more effective role in the field of public security in the city of Taiz as early Covid-19...
Appropriately taxing the richest is a priority for every government, even more so in Africa, where higher revenue mobilisation is needed to fund growth. In Uganda, the revenue authority launched a specific unit to monitor the tax affairs of the richest individuals.
Thanks to a close...
For more than 30 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has designated 31 May as World No Tobacco Day, which aims to inform the public of the danger of using tobacco, the leading preventable cause of death in the world. On this day, we’re pleased to share with you our new website Taxing...
There exists a broad range of academic and grey literature that looks at non-conflict interventions and its impact on de-escalation of conflict and reduction of violence.
There seems to be little in relation to the acceptance of negotiations. Of this literature there are a few studies of high...
The private sector has become an important partner in development interventions that aim to make market systems more favourable for smallholder producers and low-income consumers of food. In these programmes, public funds support private ventures.
Theory based evaluations are widely used to...
One of the most popular responses to drought – and disasters more generally – by aid agencies today is insurance.
This fits the current development mood, requiring market-based solutions that operate at a distance and work seemingly ‘efficiently’, offsetting the need for cumbersome,...
This week, the PASTRES exhibition Seeing Pastoralism is being shown at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, part of the events around the Stockholm+50 conference.
Fifty years ago, Barbara Ward and René Dubos published Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet. It emerged from...
On World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2022, members of the ARISE hub reflect on the impact that menstruation, and the social stigma around menstruation, have on the lives of women waste workers in India.
This paper builds upon empirical material from a case study of two dam sites in Ethiopia to revisit nexus narratives from a political ecology perspective. The two dams on tributaries of the Upper Blue Nile are examples of the success of hydro-development in increasing food and energy production,...
This study was conducted to identify the gaps in policies and practices of labour recruitment in Nepal and assess the outreach and engagement of major formal labour intermediaries, private recruitment agencies and pre-departure orientation training centres, with migrant workers for providing...
This Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development (K4D) Programme Helpdesk Report collates available literature on the impact of the Ukraine crisis on international climate and environment commitments and considerations.
The review draws on a range of sources predominantly blogs, opinion...
26 May 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).