By Lorenz Gollwitzer I am standing in Olosho-Oibor, a small village three-hours from Nairobi, at the bottom of the Ngong Hills (famous as the place where Denys Finch Hatton crashed his…
Community-based Micro Grids: Experiences in Rural Kenya
Technology & democracy: the story of Brazil’s Social Technology Network
A new STEPS working paper tells the story of a recent experiment in grassroots innovation – the Social Technology Network (STN) in Brazil. The paper, by Mariano Fressoli and Rafael…
Ebola: failures, flashpoints and focus
By Annie Wilkinson, post doctorate researcher, Institute of Development Studies As the worst Ebola epidemic on record shows no signs of abating in West Africa, fear and ignorance are increasingly…
Missionary discourses: can the green economy bring climate justice to the South?
by Joanes Atela, researcher, political ecology of carbon in Africa project The green economy has become one of the most powerful political and social agendas in the era of climate…
Mission-Oriented Finance for Innovation: top-down missions or bottom-up causes?
Andy Stirling, co-director of STEPS, will be a speaker at the conference Mission-Oriented Finance for Innovation on 22-24 July in London, which examines the important role of public sector agencies…
Antibiotics: Avoiding a return to the dark ages of medicine
By Annie Wilkinson, post doctorate researcher, Institute of Development Studies Listeners to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme woke up yesterday to Prime Minister David Cameron’s prediction of a return to the “dark ages…
Ghana,’Brazil of Africa’: Keeping lights on for the World Cup
By Sandra Pointel in Accra Over recent years, concerns to “keep the lights on” have featured high on energy policy agendas and in media headlines, especially in the developed world. Competing…
The nexus – politics, practice and disciplinary dilemmas
STEPS researchers have written a series of blogposts for the Guardian and the Nexus Platform website addressing the challenges of the water-food-energy-environment ‘nexus’. Andy Stirling addresses the challenges of working across disciplines,…
GM crops: what people in the global South really think
Durham University has just published an important new research report on the governance of transgenic crops in three of the world’s ‘rising powers’ – Brazil, Mexico and India – looking…
Andy Stirling at events on well-being and research methods
STEPS director Andy Stirling was a speaker at “Let’s Talk Happiness – beyond GDP”, a conference organised by the Various Interests Group of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)…