STEPS Summer School 2018 - apply now

Applications are open to our Summer School on Pathways to Sustainability on 14-25 May 2018.

We welcome applications from doctoral and postdoctoral researchers working in fields around development studies, science and technology studies, innovation and policy studies, and across agricultural, health, urban, water or energy issues. The deadline is 5pm GMT on Sunday 28 January 2018.

Video: why apply for the Summer School?

Watch an introduction to the Summer School by IDS Director Melissa Leach and STEPS co-director Andy Stirling, and see feedback from last year's participants.

Summer School 2018 - why apply?

Feedback from participants - STEPS Summer School 2017

Challenging authoritarian populism

An international conference in March 2018 will explore the rise of ‘authoritarian populism’ in rural settings, as well as resistance and alternatives. Plenary speakers include Michael Watts, Dzodzi Tsikata, John Gaventa, Katherine Cramer, Burak Gurel, Eduardo Gudynas, Issa Shivji (invited), Raj Patel (invited).

The Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI), the organisers, have issued a call for paper abstracts, with a deadline of 15 November.

‘Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World’ conference – call for abstracts

AAG2018 conference: There is also a call for papers for two sessions related to this topic at the Association of American Geographers 2018 annual meeting. The sessions are on ‘contextualizing authoritarian populism’ and ‘resisting, mobilizing and creating alternatives’. The AAG conference is on 10-14 April in New Orleans, USA.

AAG conference sessions – call for papers

Precaution in the Governance of Technology

STEPS co-director Prof Andy Stirling (SPRU, University of Sussex) will give the Centre for Law and the Environment's 2017 Annual Lecture, entitled 'Precaution in the Governance of Technology'. The lecture is at 18.00 on 31 October in London. Entry is free but must be booked online.

Remembering Geoff Oldham

We are deeply sad to share the news of Geoff Oldham’s death on 1 October 2017. He was a cofounder of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, and contributed unparalleled work on science and technology policy and developing countries. Geoff was one of the authors of the 1970 ‘Sussex Manifesto’, and provided invaluable inputs to the STEPS project ‘Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto’ 40 years later.

SPRU has published an obituary by Prof Johan Schot, along with an invitation to those who knew Geoff to contribute their own expressions of thought, feeling or memory.

Commemorating the life and work of Geoff Oldham

Is Brexit an opportunity to rethink the UK’s food system?

Three farmers share their thoughts on how the UK could move towards more sustainable food, in a series of videos from the STEPS-affiliated Transitions to Agroecological Food Systems project.

What does transformative research for sustainability look like?

An article on the Transformations to Sustainability website compares theories, methods and approaches across three related projects – Acknowl-EJ, T-LEARNING and the STEPS-led PATHWAYS Network – to see how transformations are being explored in 17 countries around the world.

Impact stories

Two new impact stories explore how STEPS has contributed to debates on innovation and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Making futures

Reshaping development goals

New publications from the STEPS Centre

Power in Practice: Insights from Technography and Actor-Network Theory for Agricultural Sustainability
Saurabh Arora and Dominic Glover
STEPS Working Paper 100

The Political Economy for Low-carbon Energy Transition in China: Towards a New Policy Paradigm?
By Wei Shen and Lei Xie
New Political Economy, September 2017

Recent blog posts

Climate change uncertainty: mind the gap?
Synne Movik, Catherine Wilson and Shibaji Bose (NMBU blog)

Roads, belts and corridors: what is happening along Africa’s eastern seaboard?
Ian Scoones (Zimbabweland blog)

Why Mumbai’s floods are an urban planning disaster
Hans Nicolai Adam, Lyla Mehta and D. Parthasary

NEW PAPER: People, patches and parasites
Ian Scoones

How do we ensure values are at the heart of resilience science?
Marina J. Apgar