What attempts are being made to ‘improve reality’ and who are the real beneficiaries of bids to mould the future to the vision of a few, powerful actors? STEPS Centre…
Who knows best when creating technology?
The Water Cookbook: Bhagwati Prasad’s strange and beautiful illustrations from peri-urban Delhi
I’ve just come across a copy of The Water Cookbook which I was given by Lyla Mehta, produced by part of our project looking at water conflicts in peri-urban Delhi….
Don’t believe the hype: Who authors our futures?
A chain of technological developments set into motion by chemist and physicist Gordon Moore more than 45 years ago is still resonating in technological choices being made today, says Justin Pickard, a…
Living on the edge: Rethinking aid amidst complexity
By Melissa Leach, STEPS Centre director These days, a remarkably short and convenient flight takes one from Sussex UK – where among other STEPS Centre activities this week I’ve been…
Where branding and sustainability collide
By Nathan Oxley, Communications Officer, STEPS Centre Peace Parks sound lovely, don’t they? I mean, who would be against the idea of creating a nature reserve across national borders to promote…
From Uncertainty in India to low carbon in Kenya: Our autumn newsletter is out now
Our autumn 2013 newsletter gives a snapshot of a few of the areas we are researching right now. A new briefing looks at how people deal with uncertainty about climate, disease or natural disasters in…
A new way of bringing ‘farms’ and ‘systems’ together
by Jim Sumberg, Stephen Whitfield and Ken Giller How do we understand farms as systems, and farms as part of systems? The terms and definitions that researchers use affect how…
Building pathways of pro-poor energy access
The misconception that developing countries can plump for either increasing access to energy, or low carbon development, but not both, is exploded in a paper presented by Dr Rob Byrne,…
Citizens and science in a greener China
As China and the UK seek to collaborate more closely in science and innovation, there are lessons they can share about how to govern and debate new technologies, write Adrian…
Good & evil: two articles on closing down the debate on GM crops
Is it right to call opponents of GM crops ‘wicked’? In a recent interview, Owen Paterson denounced in starkly moralistic language people whom he sees as holding up progress on…