Adrian Smith, STEPS Grassroots Innovation project convenor, will talk about grassroots prototyping past and present to a SCORAI (Europe) workshop on sustainable consumption at Kingston University today. The flourishing of…
Adrian Smith on grassroots prototyping at SCORAI Europe
‘Innovation histories’: capturing legacy & learning from long-term programmes
By Annie Wilkinson, post doctorate researcher, Institute of Development Studies (This post is part of a series of reflections emerging from a workshop on complex adaptive systems research methods held in Baltimore in June 2014.)…
GM in China: ‘Paranoia’ and public opinion
Biosafety certificates permitting Chinese researchers to grow genetically modified rice and corn expired last week, with little indication that the Ministry of Agriculture will renew them. The certificates, issued in…
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…
Same meat, different gravy? The new Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA)
By David Ockwell, STEPS Centre Deputy Director, Research On 2 July African Union Heads of State and Government adopted the new Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024…
Community-based Micro Grids: Experiences in Rural Kenya
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…
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…
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…