Spaceship Earth? Photo: NCC-1701-A by tram_painter on Flickr (cc-by-nc-nd) Prof Mike Hulme has a thoughtful post on the UEA’s 3S blog today on how metaphors affect the way we think…
Mike Hulme on planetary boundaries and other metaphors
Could the 3Ds breathe new life into farming systems research?
by Jim Sumberg, STEPS centre research fellow Hans Ruthenberg Hans Ruthenberg’s Farming Systems in the Tropics, first published in 1971, still stands as a classic. Through detailed and systematic treatment…
Public events in May: climate, justice, planetary boundaries
Next month we’re running three public events in Brighton on climate change, social justice and planetary boundaries. These events take place during our annual Summer School on Pathways to Sustainability….
What multidisciplinary means: Nature doesn’t care about our building blocks
Rats in a maze, by ithinkx on Flickr (cc-by-nc-nd) The deeper you dig into most matters, the more complex things become. International development research is no different – and, given…
Celestial (policy) navigation
by Jim Sumberg, STEPS Centre research fellow The proposition that public policy should be ‘evidence-based’ is now widely accepted (although there is still considerable contestation around the meaning, nature, types,…
Why don’t we know how to control the spread of Lassa fever?
Researchers in Sierra Leone are looking at how to prevent Lassa fever – a particularly nasty haemorrhagic virus which can wipe out entire households – by controlling the multimammate rat,…
Crossing swords over science
Kendo practice / gratapictures / Flickr (cc-by-nc) By Nathan Oxley, STEPS Centre Why do words matter in the politics of science? The topic of language kept coming back again and…
STEPS Seminar this Wednesday: climate and resettlement in Mozambique
This week’s STEPS Centre seminar will be with Alex Arnall of the University of Reading. Alex will discuss how, in one area of Mozambique, narratives about adapting to climate change…
What role does the scientific community have in post-2015 debates?
ECOSOC, from unisgeneva’s photostream on Flickr by Pedro Telles, MA student, Institute of Development Studies Those who work in the development field currently find themselves in tricky debates around the…
Fear of flying: the uneasy marriage of numbers and risk
STEPS Centre co-director Prof Andy Stirling has written an article for the Guardian‘s new blog, Political Science, about how using numbers to communicate risk can create a false sense of…