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.
In this article, we explore how local livelihoods and socio–environmental relations can be reframed through co-productive knowledge practices and legal activism.
We start by tracing the emergence of colonial declensionist views of environments in India as ‘productive’ and ‘normal’,...
This case study explores the World Food Programme’s (WFP) role in supporting social protection in Zimbabwe over the last decade.
It assesses how WFP has supported the building blocks of Zimbabwe’s national social protection system, focusing on non-contributory social assistance as the...
The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) has been awarded four pioneering research projects funded through the British Academy. The funding is part of a programme that aims to enhance the use of evidence in policymaking for addressing critical global development...
South America has compelling reasons to address the climate and environmental crisis. First, the region is highly vulnerable to its impacts due to its economic reliance on natural resources and the susceptibility of its population.
Addressing these vulnerabilities is crucial for the...
Domestic revenue mobilisation (taxation, tariffs, etc.) is recognised as the most sustainable way of financing development. For lower-income countries, this mode of financing is all the more important today, in a context of reduced development aid.
An effective tax system is based, among...
Farmers in Ghana are beginning to feel the consequences of decades of environmentally unsustainable practices such as soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, and dwindling household resources, yet their national agricultural policy remains focused on short-term economic gains. A recent panel...
Low-income countries are reeling from the sudden and wide-ranging cuts to U.S. government foreign assistance, as well as from announcements that several European donor governments are also reducing their contributions. Among the worst affected is South Sudan, a country which is experiencing...
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This seminar explores how displacement and mobility shape children’s wellbeing, drawing on research with Syrian Armenian children and families who moved to Armenia following the Syrian war. It highlights the value of child-centred,...
This case study reviews the World Food Programme’s (WFP) support to social protection in Bangladesh over the last decade.
It assesses how WFP has supported the building blocks of Bangladesh’s social protection system and delineates lessons learned, particularly in the context of the...
This case study reviews WFP’s support to the national social protection system in the Philippines since 2018, in particular to the government’s flagship nutrition-sensitive social protection programme Walang Gutom.
It also examines WFP’s efforts aimed at improving the shock-responsiveness...
This case study reviews the World Food Programme’s (WFP) support to social protection in Ecuador over the past decade. It assesses how WFP has supported the strengthening of Ecuador’s national social protection system, with a particular focus on non-contributory social assistance which aims...
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).