The STEPS Centre described its aim as to "highlight, reveal and contribute to just and democratic pathways to sustainability that include the needs, knowledge and perspectives of poor and marginalised people". The Centre's research combined development studies with science and technology studies.
Professors Ian Scoones and Andy Stirling were the co-directors of the STEPS Centre. Professor Melissa Leach stepped down as STEPS director in 2014 to become the Director of the Institute of Development Studies. The centre closed in 2022.
Areas of work
The STEPS Centre's research investigated the politics of sustainability in various domains, including climate change, food systems, urbanization, and technology. It focused on the perspectives and needs of marginalized people, particularly in poor countries and settings, as well as methodologies for including these priorities in policy appraisal and decision-making. In the final four years of its research program, the STEPS Centre focused on a series of themes with implications for the politics of sustainability.
Among the STEPS Centre's projects were:
Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto (40 years on from the Sussex Manifesto)
Crop, disease and innovation in Kenya - Maize and farming system dynamics in areas affected by climate change
Urbanisation in Asia - urbanisation and sustainability on the expanding peri-urban fringe of Delhi, India
Rethinking regulation - assumptions and realities of drug and seed regulation in China and Argentina
Risk, uncertainty and technology - framing and responses to risks and uncertainties in areas of rapid scientific and technological advance
Epidemics, livelihoods and politics - HIV-AIDS, SARS, 'avian flu, BSE - procedures for addressing epidemics that support rather than compromise poor people
Pathways approach
The STEPS Centre's pathways approach to understanding dynamic systems and their governance was outlined in a 2007 paper entitled Pathways to Sustainability: an Overview of the STEPS Centre Approach. The paper laid out the ingredients of the STEPS Centre's work, including linking diverse social and natural science perspectives, connecting theory, policy and practice and an engaged, interactive approach to communications.
Further reading
Bloom, G., Edström, J., Leach, Melissa, Lucas, H., MacGregor, H., Standing, H., and Waldman, L. (2007). Health in a Dynamic World.ISBN978-1-85864-654-1.
Leach, Melissa, Bloom, G., Ely, A., Nightingale, P., Scoones, Ian, Shah, E., and Smith, A. (2007). Understanding Governance: pathways to sustainability.ISBN978-1-85864-651-0.
Leach. Melissa, and Scoones, Ian, and Stirling, A. (2007). Pathways to Sustainability: an overview of the STEPS Centre approach.ISBN978-1-85864-656-5.
Leach. Melissa and Scoones, Ian and Stirling, A. (2010). Dynamic Sustainabilities: Technology, Environment, Social Justice.ISBN978-1-84971-093-0.
Mehta, L., Marshall, F., Movik, S., Stirling, A., Shah, E., Smith, A., and Thompson, J. (2007). Liquid Dynamics: challenges for sustainability in water and sanitation.ISBN978-1-85864-655-8.
Scoones, Ian, Leach, M., Smith, A., Stagl, S., Stirling, A., and Thompson, J. (2007). Dynamics: Dynamic Systems and the Challenge of Sustainability.ISBN978-1-85864-650-3.
Stirling, A., Leach, Melissa, Mehta, L., Scoones, I., Smith, A., Stagl, S., and Thompson, J. (2007). Empowering Designs: towards more progressive appraisal of sustainability.ISBN978-1-85864-652-7/
Thompson, J., Millstone, E., Scoones, Ian, Ely, A., Marshall, F., Shah, E., and Stagl, S. (2007). Agri-food System Dynamics: pathways to sustainability in an era of uncertainty.ISBN978-1-85864-653-4.