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.
This week it emerged that during 10 years of austerity, the height of UK children has fallen well behind global peers, with the average British boy and girl up to 5cm shorter than their European neighbours. Children’s height is used globally as a measure of health and wellbeing, and Britain...
The horticulture sector is fundamental to Kenya’s economy and its citizens’ livelihoods. However, global connectivity and high perishability make the sector vulnerable to shocks. The Covid-19 pandemic and related policy measures impacted the sector in multiple ways, with an estimated US$3m...
Pastoralists are livestock keepers who are frequently on the move, sometimes across huge distances. Following mobile lifestyles and living far from centres of power, they are often inaccurately dismissed as backward and in need of modernisation.
Many policies are directed at transforming...
How do we ensure that informal and marginalised groups are recognised in disaster response? Informality encompasses those in informal employment, living in informal settlements and undocumented migrants. CORE research - a rapid research initiative designed to understand the socio-economic...
The Covid-19 pandemic had ripple effects that extend beyond the domain of health risks into economic, social, and political domains. These effects were not evenly distributed and exacerbated existing societal inequalities and marginalisation.
In this final blog in our series on the ‘hidden middle’ around poultry production, we offer a few cases from across our sites. They are categorised according to the typology presented in the first blog in this short series. They of course don’t neatly fit, and there are inevitable...
Power wielded by ‘big food’ and other powerful actors is leading to vulnerable groups being disadvantaged by unjust and inequitable food systems, according to a new IDS report published today. It calls for marginalised social groups to be placed at the centre of food system transformation,...
The launch of Pathways to Equitable Food Systems, a new report by IDS.
The report examines the extent to which power imbalances have resulted in certain groups being disadvantaged by unjust and inequitable food systems, based on evidence from the past 10 years on topics such as corporate...
On 6 February 2023, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale brought destruction to southern Türkiye and northern Syria. The official death toll exceeded 50,000, with more than 7,000 fatalities occurring in Syria.1 An estimated 12 million people were affected by the earthquake...
Pastoralism represents a primary source of livelihood in Sardinia. Traditional pastoral practices which made effective use of local territories have smartly integrated into international policy frames and global market networks.
The Pecorino Romano is today one of the most...
Globally, our food systems are highly inequitable. In a world with enough food, hunger is becoming normalised for large numbers of people, while diets are worsening and obesity is rising.
Racialised minorities are more at risk from obesity than other groups; indigenous communities have...
This talk draws from an ethnographic study of the intersection of the international development industry and domestic labour, drawing attention to the mismatched rewards and opportunities the industry brings to its practitioners and supposed “beneficiaries”.
Expatriate aid workers in...
26 June 2023
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).