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.
Turkey hosts many mobile pastoral communities, most of which have become sedentary over the last few centuries. Even the most well-known mobile pastoralist groups still operating in the country often face obstacles to their movements, with consequences for livelihoods, animals and...
A new report by a partnership involving IDS researchers on the rapid growth of digital health services since Covid-19 warns that governance systems have not kept up with the pace of change, leading to concerns over the cost, quality and accessibility of provision.
In response to the...
Recent blogs on this site have called for academic collaboration and policy coordination with China to address global challenges including climate change and biodiversity loss, pandemics and overuse of anti-microbials, and building sustainable food systems. Here we argue for the importance of...
Jennifer Holdaway, Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, University of Leiden
Sarah Cook, Visiting Researcher, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of Witwatersrand
A century since the League of Nations first began to discuss international taxation, global tax governance has reached a critical juncture.
As the OECD’s Inclusive Framework negotiations draw towards a conclusion, there is a sense that the decade-long experiment to reform international tax...
Questions of justice are relevant to all aspects of climate and environmental change, from how and where the impacts are felt the most, the allocation and prioritisation of funding, the type of responses that are considered, to how negative impacts can arise from mitigation, adaptation, or...
Our research explored how communities responded to two epidemics in Sierra Leone. Here we highlight some of our findings, emphasising the importance of taking note of what communities themselves infer from their experiences of epidemic diseases.
Governments talk a good deal about pandemic...
Many people argue that mobile money has the potential to increase financial inclusion and improve the livelihoods of poor people in Africa. However, while many African governments impose specific taxes on mobile money transactions, very little is known about their effect on the use of mobile...
Pastoralists must continuously confront uncertainties, responding to high levels of vari- ability and volatility where the future is unknown. Yet mainstream modernising development in pastoral areas aims to create stability through control, enacted through restrictive plans and...
The Covid-19 pandemic has re-emphasised the need to ensure equitable access to safe, effective and affordable health services. The very rapid shift to the use of smartphone apps and telephone consultations (telemedicine) has highlighted the potential impact of digital innovations on the...
Some readers may be heading to the European Conference on African Studies (ECAS) this week in Cologne, Germany, whether physically or online. The conference’s focus is ‘African futures’ and there is a fantastic set of panels planned, with a bewildering 1900 papers accepted! As the...
The Covid-19 pandemic has had significant fiscal implications around the world. A key question facing governments is whether and how the pandemic has shaped taxpayer attitudes and what that means for the prospects for tax reform and new revenue raising in the wake of the pandemic.
We aim to...
In the drylands and mountains where pastoralists live, uncertainty is everywhere. In these settings, negotiating access to resources, navigating volatile markets, making use of varying social relations in times of stress, and responding to conflict and complex political dynamics is essential if...
31 May 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).