As the Society for Social Studies of Science & EASST build up to their annual meeting in Barcelona next month, the 4S blog is featuring preview pieces by participants. One…
Digital fabrication. Whose industrial revolution?
How China’s social care providers are experimenting to meet the changing needs of citizens
Welfare provision in China, including social care for older people, is being stretched and challenged by economic, social and demographic changes in the country. The rise in people’s expectations is…
Recipe for a Green Economy
Why aren’t the media talking more about climate change and population growth? asked Nigel Chapman, the Director of the BBC World Service and Trust from 2004 to 2009, speaking at…
Landmarks: how to get up close and personal with nature
I’ve just finished reading Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane, and it’s a must-read for anyone interested in sustainability and language. Each chapter focuses on one or two authors who’ve made deep…
How to move beyond technology in ‘Sustainable Intensification’
by Saurabh Arora and Ravic Nijbroek Sustainable Intensification (SI) promises more food from the same amount of land, while minimizing pressure on the environment. In Sub-Saharan Africa, considerable research and…
Why we should stop talking about ‘desertification’
A great new book has just been published called ‘The End of Desertification? Disputing Environmental Change in the Drylands’, available at a shocking price from Springer. It is edited by…
Science, Brexit and ‘post-truth’ politics
STEPS co-director Andy Stirling is one of six researchers writing in the Guardian on ‘science after Brexit’. A longer version of his part of the Guardian article is below. The…
How are the LDCs defining a new sustainable development agenda?
In June 2016, the Least Developed Countries Independent Expert Group, the International Institute for Environment and Development and the STEPS Centre hosted a dialogue for Least Developed Country (LDC) experts…
Why Britain’s decision to leave the EU is bad news for Africa
The fallout from the UK referendum that ended in victory for those wanting the country to exit from the European Union (EU) is still reverberating around the world. But what…
Brexit and development
As Britain faces the prospect of leaving the European Union, here’s a couple of blog posts on what the referendum result might mean for the UK’s role in international development….