by Cian O’Donovan and Adrian Smith Makerspaces can be a source of human capabilities that benefit people and society. But these capabilities will only lead to flourishing communities if they…
Human capabilities for innovation in UK makerspaces
Doing digital differently: four innovation lessons from the grassroots
by Adrian Smith, Adrian Ely and Phil Jones When Knowle West residents met with artists Paul Hurley and Caleb Parking in 2016, they had little idea they were at the…
Call for abstracts: ‘Post-automation’ Symposium, September 2019
A call for paper proposals has been issued for an international symposium on ‘post-automation’ at the University of Sussex in September 2019. STEPS members Adrian Smith (SPRU, University of Sussex)…
Forking the SDGs: How prototypes could transform the new global goals
Sustainable alternatives often come about through prototypes, from DIY electronics repair to ecohousing, agricultural tools to digital knowledge platforms. Prototypes are often small (at least to begin with) and local,…
What can we learn from digital transformations?
by Nathan Oxley and Adrian Smith With climate change, inequality, and injustice putting pressure on societies around the world, it often seems that incremental change towards sustainable development is not…
Making new worlds together
How could we end up in this world nobody ever wanted? This question, posed by Justyna Swat from POC21 during her talk at Monday’s event on makerspaces and sustainability, has…
Making and Sustainability
At an event at the Machines Room in London on 26 October, we discussed the roles that maker communities and the places where they interact can play in sustainable development….
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…
Adrian Smith interviewed on Spanish radio about innovation, technology & society
Adrian Smith, convenor of our Grassroots Innovation research, was recently interviewed on Spanish radio about the role that technology plays in social relations. In the interview, for the Spanish station…
STEPS-JNU Symposium: Exploring Pathways To Sustainabilty
Our 2014 Annual Symposium, ‘Exploring pathways to sustainability’, was co-organised with the Centre for Studies in Science Policy at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and launched a new initiative across four schools…