New methods needed: How can complexity science help us to understand pluralistic health systems?

This is the first blogpost in a series of reflections emerging from a workshop on complex adaptive systems research methods held in Baltimore in June 2014. It was first published on…

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…

Building low carbon, high growth futures in Africa

An article in New Scientist magazine pubished today sets out one of the most hotly-contestated questions about increasing energy access in the global south: can low carbon techology deliver meaningful opportunities for economic growth? Author…

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…

STEPS-JNU SYMPOSIUM: “Are you an academic or an activist?”

By Elisa Arond, Doctoral student, Clark University and researcher STEPS Centre Grassroots Innovation project (Photo: poster at JNU, Delhi) “Are you an academic or an activist?” That was the first…

STEPS-JNU SYMPOSIUM: Every case is its own study? Every movement has its own goals?

By Adrian Smith, Researcher, STEPS Centre / SPRU Learning with and across diverse grassroots innovation movements Here in Delhi, first at the Grassroots Innovation Movements Workshop, and then at the…

STEPS-JNU SYMPOSIUM: Transformative innovation from the grassroots

By Ian Scoones, Co-Director, STEPS Centre Session three at the JNU-STEPS Symposium focused on ‘grassroots innovation’. The panel emphasised the transformative possibilities of innovation, and the need to go beyond…