SPRU and STEPS Centre staff with other participants at the Pathway workshop in Buenos Aires (photo credit: STEPS Centre)

Researchers from SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit travelled to Buenos Aires in April 2016 to run the opening workshop of the Pathways sustainability network, an International Social Science Council (ISSC)-funded project focused on transformative pathways to sustainability across disciplines, contexts and cultures. 

SPRU's Dr Adrian Ely, Professor Fiona Marshall and Dr Rob Byrne joined participants from several countries - including representatives of the project's six 'hubs' in Kenya, the UK, Argentina, USA/Mexico, India and China - to discuss ways of addressing sustainability issues faced by communities the world over.  

The project has established transformation labs, or 'T-Labs', in its six 'hub' countries, with the aim of uniting people dealing with problematic relationships between humans and their environment and helping them to find solutions by discussing alternative approaches, debating desired outcomes and creating and testing prototype innovations. 

Dr Adrian Ely commented on the workshop:

"The discussions in Buenos Aires helped us to compare the different forms of innovation that we we’ll be studying with partners from across five continents.  It was a great start to this exciting project."