Events archive : Global Transformations : University of Sussex

How to Build Large Scale Academic Collaborations

The seminar was developed by the Global Transformations and Environment and Health theme leads with the purpose of providing a forum for the discussion and exploration of processes and challenges involved in the development of large, interdisciplinary academic collaborations. Talks were given in March 2011 by Sussex staff with valuable experience in these areas.

Talking Global Health

Talking Global Health The event, held in July 2011 brought 70 people together from wide ranging backgrounds including the Universities of Sussex and Brighton, the Institute of Development Studies and a number of locally-based non-governmental organisations. The aim was to create an informal environment where people could present their work and make connections, whilst promoting the Global Health activities of Sussex. The first session ‘setting the scene’ included talks on climate change, early life interventions and the Brighton-Zambia Health Link, giving an indication of the breadth of work ongoing in both Universities. There was a series of ‘snapshot’ talks allowing members of the audience to introduce their work and provide a basis for networking over lunch. The afternoon was spent in small discussion groups covering 5 topical themes:

Global Health Diplomacy: How can we make global health a greater international priority?
Social Determinants of Health: Do we know what really matters to reduce health inequalities?
Empowered communities': political correctness or global health core?
Is the focus of millennium development goal 5 enough to improve maternal health?
Depression as 2nd largest global health challenge – science, social construct or delusion?’

Stimulating keynote talks were given by Peter Aggleton (University of Sussex) who shared his experience of developing sexual health programme guidance for WHO and Richard Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, who presented on the ground-breaking work published in his book The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everyone’; and Peter Aggleton, Professor of Education, Social Work and Social Care at the University of Sussex who presented on ‘Sex, Sexuality and Sexual Health - from Practice to Policy - the Development of WHO guidelines’.

Botany, Climate and Empire

The Centre for World Environmental History hosted a workshop entitled 'Botany,Climate and Empire' in May 2011. The workshop involved colleagues from the Universities of Brighton, Cambridge, Kent, Oxford, Royal Holloway, the Australian National Unversity, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Kew Gardens, the British Library, the Natural History Museum and the Met Office. The goal of the workshop was to shape a research agenda and a theoretical framework involving a reconceptualisation of the interrelationship between human and natural history.

Researching a Deadly Virus

The Centre for Global Health Policy hosted this timely debate in May 2012, with support from the Theme. According to the World Health Organization, more than 50% of people infected with highly pathogenic bird flu (H5N1) have died. So why did two publicly funded university research teams (in Holland and the USA) try to develop new H5N1 viruses that could transmit more easily between humans? And why do they want to publish the findings of how they did it in leading scientific journals? The high risks to human health involved, combined with the risk of bioterrorism, has prompted calls for deeper reflection on the implications of such 'dangerous' research. The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) even took the unprecedented step of requesting that the journals Science and Nature withhold key information when publishing the results. With the UK Cabinet Office risk register listing influenza pandemic as the number one civil emergency risk, should scientists researching viruses be censored? What are the ethics of developing strains of deadly viruses in the lab? How should governments balance security issues with those of health?
The event brought together a panel of experts intimately connected to the controversy to address questions of research ethics, security, and more.

Humanitarianism at Sussex

A workshop entitled 'Humanitarianism at Sussex' was held in May 2011 at which Sussex researchers from a number of schools and disciplines discussed various strands of research on humanitarianism.

Speakers included:

Lyndsay McLean Hilker (Anthropology) - reconciling the academic and poliy worlds
Lisa Smirl (International Relations) - material culture and humanitarianism
Jock Stirrat (Anthropolgy) - for an anthropology of charity and philanthropy
Keith Lewin (Education) - developing a DFID-funded interdisciplinary centre

Presentations were followed by breakout groups which discussed the following four topics:

Crisis-affected and displaced peoples
Cultures of aid, diplomacy and humanitarianism
Peace building, post-conflict reconciliation and justice
Human and minority rights, identity and citizenship

The outcome of this initial meeting was to host a second event which would enable faculty to engage with leading humanitarian agencies and open a discussion about the issues that they are facing.

New Humanitarian Agendas

The one-day conference in October 2011 brought together Sussex researchers and leaders of major humanitarian agencies. These agencies, including Oxfam and the Red Cross, want to be challenged by academic research. They welcome research that questions not only how they go about the mechanics of delivering aid in emergencies, but also the core principles and practices that lie behind their actions. At the conference, relief agencies discussed with Sussex and IDS researchers how research can be of benefit in the provision of emergency relief and ‘capacity building’ in the most vulnerable, crisis-prone regions of the world. Professor Alan Lester, the Global Transformations theme leader, noted: "One of the major goals of the Global Transformations research theme is to help build a network of researchers who can provide such critically constructive advice."

Natural History and Empire

Two collaborative activities involving the University of Sussex (Centre for World Environmental History), the Natural History Museum and Kew Gardens took place in December 2011.

The first activity supported a Centre for World Environmental History initiative to bring together and preserve the dispersed archival collections of Nathanial Wallich at London and Calcutta, through the World Collections Programme. Nathanial Wallich was Director of the Calcutta Botanic Garden in 1820.

The second activity was a meeting to celebrate the centenary of Sir Joseph Hooker and was partly sponsored by Sussex University, as well as the Linnean society, the Kew Guild and the Annals for Botany. This meeting explored the impact of Joseph Hooker’s career in terms of his botanical investigations in Britain and within the larger empire. His relationship with Charles Darwin and the impact of their discussions on endemism and plant evolution were discussed amongst the 150 participants. Sussex has sponsored the transcription of the India correspondence of Joseph Hooker and this was on display in an afternoon session, led by three members of the university who were part of the transcription exercise.

For more on this project see the Centre for World Environmental History pages.

Further details of the Indian Letters Transcription Project are available.

Global Flows, Human Rights, Sexual and Reproductive Health

The Theme co-sponsored an international conference at the University on 4-5th July 2011 entitled 'Global Flows, Human Rights, Sexual and Reproductive Health: Ethnographies of Institutional Change in the Global South'. Focusing specifically on the globalising of facts around reproductive and sexual health, the conference brought together experts from across the social sciences to critically reflect on the way in which human rights ideas and conventions are shaping the development discourse and on-the-ground outcomes in sexual, maternal and reproductive health in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The conference also provided a space to debate broader issues in the gendered politics of rights such as whether rights are an appropriate means for achieving sexual & reproductive health of the poor and marginalised and to what extent a rights focus on the bodies of poor women forms part of a wider set of exclusionary discourses.

The conference was part of an ongoing research project funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council entitled ‘Realising Global Rights to Health: An ethnographic analysis of rights-based organisations in promoting reproductive health in India’.

What is the Future for Global Climate Politics?

Global Climate Politics A public debate with a distinguished panel of experts in climate change politics was held on campus in March 2012.

Event overview:

Global climate politics are in stalemate. Targets and timetables for action fall woefully short of what the science suggests is required to keep global warming below dangerous levels. Unprecedented levels of finance for climate mitigation and adaptation are required, but we face the worst financial crisis for half a century, so where will the money come from and how will it be distributed? The role of carbon markets is in doubt amid low carbon prices and a series of corruption scandals. Political leadership is sorely lacking. So where do we go from here?

This was the question addressed by a distinguished panel of experts in climate change politics.

The Panel:

Matthew Lockwood(Chair), Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies
Mark Kenber, CEO of The Climate Group
Farhana Yamin, Children’s Investment Fund, legal advisor to the small island states in the climate negotiations
Peter Newell,Professor of International Relations, University of Sussex
Smita Nakhooda, Senior Research Fellow, Overseas Development Institute

The event summary is now available to read.

Transformations: Reshaping Global Politics, Economics and Environment

As part of the 50th anniversary, we celebrated our academic rigour with a series of six Sussex Conversations featuring leading thinkers of our age. The Global Transformations conversation was held in March 2012. The conversation took the opportunity to reflect of Sussex’s tradition of using interdisciplinary research to address major transformations shaping social, economic, political, cultural and environmental relations on a global scale. They also looked forward to the next 50 years of global charge, identifying the main drivers and considering the implications, especially for the world’s poorest people.

Some of the key questions included:

How will the global economy be reshaped and what are the implications for 'development'?
What will be the respective roles of technological solution and social adaptation in dealing with climate change?
How will global migration patterns change and what are the implications for human rights?

You can watch the discussion on the Sussex Conversations webpage.

NOAH: Research Hotel on Complex Emergencies

In June 2013, the Global Transformations Research Theme hosted a Research Hotel on Complex Emergencies for the Higher Education Innovation Fund sponsored Network on Adaptation in Humanitarianism (NOAH). Professor Dominic Kniveton chaired the two day meeting with University of Sussex faculty from several departments and practitioners from organisations including Save the Children, the United States Agency for International Development, British Red Cross, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, the Department for International Development, Overseas Development Institute and MapAction.

The aim of the Research Hotel was to develop a collaborative research agenda on complex emergencies with discussion focussing on understanding and mapping the determinants, processes and actors in complex emergencies as well as exploring the use of complexity science to understand emergent crises.