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.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development party (AKP) won the presidential election in Turkey on Sunday. Erdogan - serving as President or as Prime Minister of Türkiye for the past 20 years - has just been given another five-year term by Türkiye’s voters despite actively...
In May 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Covid-19 is no longer a health emergency. Now that the world is in this new period of living with the coronavirus, it is an important time to gather knowledge gained from our experiences.
Over 50 researchers from 25 countries...
As part of the Accountability and Responsiveness in Informal Urban Settlements for Equity in Health and Well-being (ARISE) project, of which IDS is a partner, Sadaf Khan reports on the disconnect between the UN’s definition of slums, and the diverse realities of these informal...
The leading artist of the project, also a shepherd from the pastoralist community of Northern Spain, Fernando Garcia Dory, installed on the wall the plants brought from pastures of Boğatepe, along with lyrics of a local artistic verbal expression, bayatı or mani. Boğatepe Environment and...
The global pool for zakat – one of the five pillars of Islam mandating an annual payment typically equivalent to 2.5 per cent of an individual’s productive wealth – is estimated to make up between USD 200 billion and 1 trillion. States have long sought to harness zakat for their own...
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 fragile and conflict-affected north-eastern Nigeria, social assistance delivery has evolved from a near absence of any form of systematic and organised approach to a promising attempt to coordinate and deliver services to the most vulnerable populations in the region. After over a decade of...
Now that Covid-19 has officially become an established health issue, and no longer a public health emergency of international concern, this is an important time to act, learn lessons and collate knowledge gained from our experiences. Together with 50 researchers from 25 countries, across six...
This brief offers key considerations for CBS programming to guide policymakers, public health officials, civil society organisations, health workers, researchers, advocates, and others interested in health surveillance. It is based on a rapid review of CBS guidance and social science literature.
The population in sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest growing and the youngest in the world, yet the politicians ruling them are typically among the oldest. In some East African countries, the current rulers are yesterday’s rebels. Some have developed a range of authoritarian practices to stay...
Living Off-Grid Food and Infrastructure Collaboration Working Paper 1
This working paper is the product of the Living Off-Grid Food and Infrastructure Collaboration. It is designed to bring together our thinking on how infrastructure can shape the food and nutritional security of urban marginalised populations. Infrastructure assemblages include the material...
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).