Can you help shape our future priorities? Take a five minute survey now. Survey closes on 8 July.

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

Melissa Leach

Emeritus Fellow

Lyla Mehta

Professorial Fellow

Ian Scoones

Professorial Fellow

Amber Huff

Research Fellow

Jeremy Allouche

Professorial Fellow

Lars Otto Naess

Research Fellow

Wei Shen

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead and Research Fellow

Shilpi Srivastava

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead and Research Fellow

Programmes and centres

Recent work

Filter results by

Showing 13–24 of 15388 results

News

IDS PhD researchers recognised with CSWIR awards

In recognition of outstanding research, the Centre for Social Work Innovation and Research (CSWIR) recently presented awards to Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) and Early Career Researchers (ECRs) across the University of Sussex. Diana Ramirez Sarmiento and Sunisha Neupane, both PhD researchers...

2 July 2025

Opinion

Reflecting on ‘success’ in smallholder farming in Zimbabwe

This blog offers a compilation of blogs published over the past weeks, which have offered a reflection on how local people understand ‘success’ and its changes over time especially in the period since the 2000 land reform. We have worked in a diversity of A1 smallholder land reform and...

1 July 2025

Working Paper

Fragmented Power, Access and Legitimacy: The Politics of Social Assistance in Yemen’s Conflict (2014–24)

BASIC Research Working Paper 38

This paper examines the politics and dynamics of social assistance in Yemen, where international humanitarian aid dominates support to conflict-affected populations.

30 June 2025

Past Event

Between the Lines Podcast

Podcast S07 Ep5: Dignity in development

The development sector proclaims that it values dignity. Yet it often breaks this promise, with people leaving encounters with charities feeling bruised and unseen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T2L4v4DOhw In this podcast, drawn from a recent lecture at IDS, research fellow Marina Apgar...

27 June 2025

News

Podcast: Dignity in development

The development sector proclaims that it values dignity. Yet it often breaks this promise, with people leaving encounters with charities feeling bruised and unseen. In this podcast, drawn from a recent lecture at IDS, research fellow Marina Apgar is in conversation with Tom Wein from the...

26 June 2025

Opinion

Consea back in operation again

One of President Lula’s early acts as President of Brazil for the third time was to reinstate the national food and nutrition security council, after the previous President Jair Bolsonaro had dismantled it in 2019. Earlier this month, I was at the inaugural meeting for this council,...

25 June 2025

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).

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.