Sustainability

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.

People

Lyla Mehta

Professorial Fellow

Ian Scoones

Professorial Fellow

Amber Huff

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead

Jeremy Allouche

Professorial Fellow

Lars Otto Naess

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead

Wei Shen

Research Fellow

Shilpi Srivastava

Research Fellow

Programmes and centres

Recent work

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Showing 13–24 of 14676 results

Opinion

Building trust: Community solutions for social assistance accountability in Somalia

Somalia is consistently among one of the most challenging environments for aid agencies and government entities to provide social assistance due to the ongoing conflict and limited government control. Aid providers struggle to reach people in areas not under government control, which exacerbates...

Louisa Seferis & 2 others

18 April 2024

Working Paper

Power, Trust, and Pre-Cooked Programmes: The Accountability of ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍Social Assistance in Somalia

BASIC Research Working Paper 22

Social assistance in Somalia has become deeply embedded in the country’s political economy and struggles with systemic diversion and corruption, which negatively affects how programmes on accountability of aid function in practice. This paper examines systems for accountability of social...

Louisa Seferis & 4 others

18 April 2024

News

Podcast: Reflections on Development with Melissa Leach

In this special episode of the IDS Between the Lines podcast Andy Sumner, President of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) and Professor of International Development at Kings College London interviews Professor Melissa Leach who leaves IDS after 33...

17 April 2024

News

Sussex retains first in the world ranking for Development Studies

The Institute of Development Studies (IDS), in partnership with the University of Sussex, has today (10 April) been ranked first in the world for Development Studies in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024. It is the eighth consecutive year that Sussex has taken the top spot for...

10 April 2024

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).