About Adrian Smith

Researcher

Adrian specialises in critical analysis of environmental policy processes, and research into relationships between technology, society and sustainable development.

All posts by Adrian

Why should we seek sustainable developments in makerspaces?

Community-based workshops like hackerspaces, fablabs and makerspaces, equipped with design, prototyping and fabrication tools have spread rapidly in recent years. Interest in the social, economic and environmental possibilities of these spaces has…

Mind your (innovation) language

by Adrian Smith and Saurabh Arora, SPRU At the STEPS Centre, we recently organised a couple of workshops looking at the topic of alternative innovation and its proliferation of innovation…

‘Thousands of models’: Planetary boundaries, values & power

The role of current patterns of human habitation in earth systems processes is pushing beyond planetary boundaries; which is to say our impacts on climate and biosphere risk tipping our…

A day with Argentina’s ‘street engineers’

They take pride in what they do at the Reciclando Sueños co-operative. Situated in the La Matanza district of greater Buenos Aires, the workers describe themselves as cartoneros profesionales (professional…

Why STEPS is creating a new research hub in Latin America

I am in Buenos Aires for the ESOCITE/4S conference, which is bringing together Latin American scholars in Science & Technology Studies and visitors from the USA, Europe and other regions…

Recordando el Plan de Lucas: que nos puede decir el movimiento para producción social útil sobre la innovación inclusiva hoy?

This post is a translated and edited version of an article first published in English on the Guardian’s Political Science blog En enero de 1976 los trabajadores de Lucas Aerospace…

Inclusive innovation: learning to listen to the excluded

Last week I spent a fascinating couple of days at the OECD Symposium on Innovation and Inclusive Growth, where discussion kept returning to the challenge of scaling-up inclusive innovation. Unsurprisingly,…

Scaling-up inclusive innovation: asking the right questions?

This post is based on a contribution I’ll be making in a session on ‘scaling up’ at the OECD Symposium on Innovation and Inclusive Growth in Paris on 20-21 March…

What the new Ahmedabad Declaration means for grassroots innovation

by Adrian Smith, STEPS Grassroots Innovation project NOTE: A new article on grassroots innovation has just been published on the website of the Journal of Cleaner Production, authored by Adrian…