The STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre

Environmental, food and economic crises now pre-occupy global publics and policymakers. The world faces critical challenges involving complex interactions of social, technical and ecological processes. Science and technology are advancing rapidly but its benefits are felt unevenly, and marginal people and places in Africa, Asia and Latin America often lose out. Navigating complexities, while meeting moral and political imperatives for poverty alleviation, social justice and environmental sustainability, present formidable challenges. Yet many opportunities are coming into view, from citizen-led initiatives in sustainable energy and water management, to novel approaches to address health-environment linkages or build food security for small farmers amidst climate change. More than ever, we need modes of understanding and action that break with past categories, give priority to the perspectives, priorities and creativity of people struggling to escape poverty and marginalisation, and engage politics and institutions to support their efforts and aspirations. The STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre at Sussex works with partners around the world in research, policy engagement and capacity building to address these challenges and build pathways to sustainability. Building on Phase I's achievements and in today's newly vital context, we now propose a programme to enrich and deepen the Centre's hallmark 'pathways' approach in relation to new, pressing issues. Integrating development studies with science and technology studies, and in thoroughgoing engagement with natural scientists and users, we aim to achieve theoretical and practical advances in 'negotiating complexity in a dynamic world', and 'making science and technology work for people and the environment'. To do this, we will develop new understandings of how the themes of 'dynamics', 'governance' and 'designs' interact. We will advance theory and processes of pathway-building by engaging with six key conceptual areas: 'transitions and transformation'; 'diversity and complexity'; 'political ecology and economy'; 'knowledge and imaginaries'; 'citizenship and participation'; 'innovation and distribution'. We will build on links with the Sussex Energy Group to develop a new domain on Energy and Climate, complementing continuing work on Water and Sanitation, Food and Agriculture, and Health and Disease. And we will develop and undertake, with partners, natural scientists and potential research users, a new set of located, cross-sectoral and cross-thematic projects, integrated into four clusters. Risk and security: institutions for complex systems' will address issues of securitization and risk in global systems, and of formality and informality in urban environments. 'Socio-technical transitions in a changing climate will address niche pathways and sustainability transitions in food and energy, and 'uncertainty from 'below' and 'above' in responding to climate change. Political ecologies of global transformation will address carbon in relation to land and livelihoods in rural Africa, and the dynamics of global commodity chains, focusing on meat and soybean. The socio-ecological dynamics of disease will address zoonotic disease risks in intensifying livestock production systems, and new approaches to integrated vector management. We will also undertake two major cross-cutting workstreams, developing a toolbox of novel interdisciplinary Methods and Methodologies for analysing sustainability issues, and expanding and integrating our work on Impact, Communications and Engagement, following up our high profile New Manifesto project and bringing new ideas, evidence and approaches to international processes around Rio plus 20, the MDGs and beyond. These work streams will further integrate the Centre's work, and enable a wide range of outreach activities geared to building pathways to sustainability and social justice in diverse contexts.