STEPS Centre conferences

The STEPS Centre hosted and organised a number of international symposia and conferences between 2008 and 2021. Follow the links to find video recordings, publications and other resources from each event.

2021

Pathways to Sustainability: Knowledge, Politics and Power

Final event of the STEPS Centre bringing together collaborators from across its 15-year history.

2020

POLLEN20: Contested Natures – Power, Possibility, Prefiguration

The STEPS Centre hosts the 2020 Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network (POLLEN). The conference comes in the middle of the STEPS Centre’s year focusing on the theme of Natures.

2019

The Politics of Uncertainty: Practical Challenges for Transformative Action

An international symposium in Sussex, UK on the STEPS Centre’s theme for 2019: Uncertainty. Thinking across diverse domains – from finance, to climate, to migration, to disease, to innovation, to infrastructure, to security – this symposium in July explores the diverse ways incertitude is understood and responded to (or not).

2018

Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World

The first major event convened by the ERPI (Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative), this conference brought together an international group of activists and scholars in The Hague in March 2018. STEPS was among the contributors to the organising comittee and communications.

2016

One Health for the Real World 

The international symposium ‘One Health for the Real World: zoonoses, ecosystems and wellbeing’ took place at the Zoological Society of London, 17-18 March 2016.

Pathways to Sustainable Urbanisation 

The conference was held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India from 29-30 January 2016.

Contested Agronomy 

The conference, about the battlefields in agricultural research, was held at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK from 23 – 25 February 2016.

2015

Resource Politics: transforming pathways to sustainability 

The STEPS Centre conference on the politics of resource access, allocation and distribution was held at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex from 7-9 September 2015.

Pathways to Sustainability in a Changing China 

The conference marked the launch of the STEPS China Sustainability Hub, and provided a valuable opportunity for STEPS Centre members, colleagues from across China and international partners to share insights, experiences and plans for future research and engagement. It was hosted by Beijing Normal University School of Social Development and Public Policy from 20 – 21 April 2015.

2014

Pathways to Sustainability

The STEP Centre’s Annual Symposium was co-organised with the Centre for Studies in Science Policy at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and launched a new initiative across four schools at JNU to create a STEPS ‘Sustainability Hub’ for collaborative, interdisciplinary work.

2013

Credibility across Cultures 

Our symposium on the global politics of scientific advice was held on 6-7 February 2013 at the University of Sussex.

2011

Water and Sanitation symposium: Some For All? 

The symposium looked back at the New Delhi Statement endorsed by the General Assembly in 1990 to understand  the pathways that have – or could have – emerged and the political economy and politics of water and sanitation policy processes in the intervening 21 years. It was held from 22 – 23 March 2001 at  the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.

2010

Pathways to Sustainability 

This conference, held at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK, explored agendas towards a new politics of environment, development and social justice.

2009

Innovation, Sustainability, Development 

The Annual Symposium discussed emerging themes, challenges and opportunities that current reconfigurations present for innovation, sustainability and development. The Symposium formed part of the STEPS Centre project Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto.

2008

Reframing Resilience 

This annual STEPS Symposium aimed to explore some of the wider frontier challenges in the resilience field and try to make progress on both intellectual and practical fronts. The Symposium brings together a broad spectrum of resilience thinkers from diverse disciplinary perspectives.