Projects : Global Transformations : University of Sussex

The following list highlights some of the externally funded Global Transformations projects currently being undertaken by Sussex Faculty.

Charity, Philanthropy and Development in Colombo, Sri Lanka

University of Sussex & Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA), Sri Lanka
Prof Roderick Stirrat, Dr Tudor Silva, Dr Tom Widger & Dr Filippo Osella
Economic and Social Research Council/Department for International Development funded research project (2012-2014)

This project investigates charity and charitable organizations in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Here, long standing ideologies of giving intermingle, interact and coexist with global ideas about the nature of charity and the relationship between charity and development. Surveys of givers and receivers have generated an overall picture of the landscape of charity in Colombo. The second qualitative element of the research project focuses on interviewing a smaller sample of donors, charitable institutions and receivers. The third element of the project examines how political and economic change has affected the historical transformations of charity in Sri Lanka. Finally, there is an element in the project which looks at the role of the Sri Lankan diaspora not only in supporting charitable activity in Sri Lanka but also in changing it. The project itself utilizes a 'Stakeholder Response Group' to ensure that the research process is mindful of the needs of the development community. An End of Project international conference will focus on the lessons learnt from the project as to how indigenous charity can be encouraged to support development activities. The project will produce policy briefs as well as making presentations to major development players and to academic conferences.

Promising practice in School Related Gender Based Violence (SRGBV)

Dr Máiréad Dunne, Concern Worldwide

School related gender based violence (SRGBV) has become highlighted as an important arena for prevention and intervention in the education sector but there is little collected intelligence to date on best practice. Concern Worldwide along with other development agencies has developed programmes incorporating prevention and response interventions to address SRGBV. There is insufficient knowledge, however, of how SRGBV is integrated into such programmes and little evidence of what makes prevention or intervention successful, or indeed of the criteria through which this success might be assessed. This review seeks to advance our learning in this field.

Expansion of 'Speed Schools' programme to Ethiopia: Impact Evaluation submitted to Geneva Global Performance Philanthropy

Dr Albert K Akyeampong, Geneva Global Inc

'Speed Schools' is a project funded by Geneva Global which has, to date, re-integrated 34,000 out-of-school children into basic education across West Africa (with about an 80% success rate). Despite the apparent success and endorsement of the model across West Africa, there is a lack of robust independent research to inform the introduction of the programme in other parts of Africa. So the Centre for international Education (CIE) is carrying out an impact evaluation of a new speed schools project in Ethiopia - using a quasi experimental design alongside qualitative research. The project examines the effectiveness of the speed schools model and advises the expansion of the Speed Schools programme in Ethiopia.

Bionetworking in Asia A social science approach to international collaboration, informal exchanges, and responsible innovation in the life sciences

Dr Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner, European Union

Bio-medical innovation makes a substantial contribution to Western societies and economies. But leading research organisations in the West are increasingly reliant on clinical research conducted beyond the West. Such initiatives are challenged by uncertainties about research quality and therapeutic practices in Asian countries. These only partly justified uncertainties are augmented by unfamiliar conditions. This study examines how to create responsible innovation in the life sciences by looking for ways to overcome existing obstacles to safe, just and ethical international science collaborations.

Building on observations of scientists, managers and patients and supported by Asian language expertise, biology background, and experience with science and technology policy-making, we examine the roles of regional differences and inequalities in the networks used for patient recruitment and international research agreements. Profit-motivated networks in the life sciences also occur underground and at an informal, unregulated level, which we call bionetworking. Bionetworking is a social entrepreneurial activity involving biomedical research, healthcare and patient networks that are maintained by taking advantage of regionally differences in levels of science and technology, healthcare, education and regulatory regimes.

Using novel social-science methods, the project studies two main themes. Theme 1 examines patient recruitment networks for experimental stem cell therapies and cooperation between research and health institutions involving exchanges of patients against other resources. Theme 2 maps and analyses exchanges of biomaterials of human derivation, and forms of ‘ownership’ rights, benefits and burdens associated with their donation, possession, maintenance, and application. Integral analysis of the project nodes incorporates an analysis of public health policy and patient preference in relation to Responsible innovation, Good governance and Global assemblages.

The City at the Time of Crisis: Transformations of Public Spaces in Athens, Greece

Dr Dimitrios Dalakoglou, Economic and Social Research Council

This project seeks to trace, understand and analyse the relationship between the ongoing financial crisis and urban public spaces. Although Greece might be an extreme example of an ongoing transnational transformation, the consequences of this global financial and political crisis nevertheless extend beyond the debt-ridden state. The Greek experience exemplifies an emergent mode of governance that is suggestive of a generalised state restructuring across substantial sections of the world: as an example, state cut-backs echoing the Greek experiment were quick to follow in a number of EU countries, whether those suffering 'public debt contagion' (e.g. Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain) or those now suffering a fiscal uncertainty unimaginable even a few years ago (e.g. the UK and the USA).

As the financial crisis spreads across various regions of the world, then, and as new paradigms of governance emerge, a formidable effect on the material reality of local populations can be witnessed, with entire districts being turned into zones of public unrest and conflict. Major incidents of social unrest are now occurring in cities that had been relatively orderly in the recent past (e.g. London or New York) while the public spatial dynamics of other places that have encountered such phenomena more frequently are now changing beyond recognition (e.g. Athens).

Greece is one of the countries most severely affected by the current financial crisis. Since spring 2010, when the Greek government and IMF/EU/ECB agreed on the largest loan ever received by a single country ($110 billion), Greece has seen sweeping transformations in the character of its polity and state functions. A main element of these transformations is the reconfiguration/privatisation of state assets including infrastructures, utility power and substantial real estate, along with higher education and public health. In this way, the Greek version of the crisis has produced a rupture in the modus operandi of the state in question and in its relationship with its citizenry. The main axis of this rupture is the systemic challenge and reconfiguration of the category 'public' - which of course includes public spaces.

For all these reasons, the research will comprise a holistic, cross-disciplinary study of changing notions of the 'public', with public urban spaces as its main research subject. The idea of studying selected public urban spaces in the capital city of the country most severely affected by the crisis appears as an ideal way in which to study the array of challenges to our conceptualisations of what comprises the public, (whether of the 'public good', 'public provision', 'public interest' and so forth) as a consequence of the financial crisis.

As the 'Greek crisis' is the exemplar of a wider crisis, the research outcome of the project will, in turn, be relevant and useful to international communities of users, offering a rigorous and comprehensive social, material and spatial reading that can be used to understand parallel and ongoing processes elsewhere.

India's National Rural Employment Guarentee Scheme: livelihoods, gender and migration in Tamil Nadu

Dr Grace Carswell (Geography) and Geert De Neve (Anthropology), British Academy

Increasingly known as an emergent neoliberal state, India passed an unprecedented Act in 2005 that seeks to guarantee basic social security for the country’s rural poor by providing all rural households with 100 days of paid casual employment. This National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been implemented across India, involving billions of rupees of government funding and hundreds of millions of rural beneficiaries. Yet, little is known to date about the impacts of this nationwide Scheme on the livelihoods of the rural poor whom it seeks to affect. Building on emerging research, this project seeks to explore three aspects of the Scheme through a detailed case study of a state in which the NREGA is widely considered to have been ‘successfully’ implemented. First, it will study the Scheme’s impacts in terms of gender and caste inequality. Second, it will research the politics surrounding its implementation and rural people’s reactions to the Scheme. Third, it will document its effects on wider livelihoods as well as migration flows and decisions.

Climate and Development Knowledge Network- Climate Change related migration in Bangladesh

Professor Dominic Kniveton, Departmet for International Development

Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. Past climate shocks have exerted a heavy toll on lives and livelihoods in Bangladesh. Migration is an important adaptation strategy for poor rural populations to cope with both gradual onset climate stresses and shorter, sudden shocks. The overarching aim of this research is to strengthen the ability of Government of Bangladesh to understand, plan for and respond to climate induced migration at different levels while reducing vulnerability and building the resilience of the people of Bangladesh to the impacts of climate change. In order to achieve this aim the project will undertake a detailed, evidence based qualitative and quantitative assessment of four case study locations. These locations include the climate change-migration hotspots of the flood plain areas in Dhaka, rural river communities in Sirajgoni, the coastal belt of Khulna and the drought prone region of Naogaon. In particular the interplay of the different factors that determine migration at macro, micro and meso levels will be explored and the sensitivity of these determinants tested against a range of anticipated climate change impacts. Scenarios of migration futures will be derived by a community of practice of stakeholders and researchers in the project. The findings of these assessments will be combined with a policy analysis to provide policy recommendations that will aim to minimise the costs and risks associated with migration in response to climate change, and to maximize the contribution of migration to building adaptive capacity.

Pro-poor, low carbon development: Improving low carbon energy access and development benefits in Least Developed Countries (LDC)

Dr David G Ockwell, Department for International Development

A partnership between the African Technology Policy Studies Network in Kenya and the University of Sussex in the UK (including the STEPS Centre, Sussex Energy Group and Tyndall Centre), this project is funded by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (an initiative which is in turn funded by the UK Department for International Development, DFID).

The project aims to inform the development of Climate Innovation Centres in various developing countries by analysing the history of, and actors involved in, the adoption of solar home systems in Kenya. The objective is to improve the ability of policy to facilitate the transfer and uptake of low carbon technologies in developing countries, and to do so in ways that can assist in their economic development. Especially challenging but of critical importance to this economic development, the project aims to identify ways in which low carbon technologies can benefit poor people by improving access to modern energy services.

The project brings to bear innovative theory which builds on the STEPS Centre’s Pathways Approach to bridge relevant insights from academic literature in the fields of both innovation studies and socio-technical transitions. For more information on the theoretical background to the project see the STEPS Centre Energy Briefing and associated Working Paper.

Running from April 2012 to March 2014, further project relevant information and publications will be posted on this page as the project progresses.

For further information visit the STEPS Centre website

Finance and the Entrepreneurial State

Professor Mariana Mazzucato, Ford Foundation, Demos

The Entrepreneurial State explores the leading role that the State has played in generating innovation and economic growth in modern capitalism. It began as a collaboration with the UK think tank DEMOS, and is now part of a new project funded by the Ford Foundation (Reforming Global Finance). This second phase of the project will include a new book, to be published with Anthem Press, in Spring 2013.

The DEMOS version of the Entrepreneurial State, launched on July 11, 2011 in the UK House of Commons, argues that the juxtaposition of an inertial bureaucratic state versus a dynamic innovative private sector is a myth that has been created to serve ideological aims rather than scientific analysis. The economists’ tool box for understanding the state’s role has been limited to one of ‘market failure’ where the state simply fixes problems. The book argues that the state and innovation has been more about market making and market shaping than market fixing.

For further information on this project visit Mariana Mazzucato's website.

Estimating the Economic Impact on Developing Countries of a Potential Deep Comprehensive Trade initiative between the European Union and the United States

Dr Peter M Holmes, Department for International Development

The main report will present an overview of the potential impact of a possible EU-US agreement on developing countries. We shall analyse a scenario involving a full free trade area which addresses the following elements,

Elimination or reduction of conventional barriers to trade in goods, such as tariffs and tariff-rate quotas
Elimination, reduction, or prevention of barriers to trade in goods, services, and investment.
Opportunities for enhancing the compatibility of regulations and standards.
Elimination, reduction, or prevention of unnecessary “behind the border” non-tariff barriers to trade in all categories.
Enhanced cooperation for the development of rules and principles on global issues of common concern and also for the achievement of shared economic goals relating to third countries.

Rigorous Literature Review of the Political Economy of Education in Conflict Affected Contexts

Dr Mario Novelli, Department for International Development

This rigorous literature review explores the political economy of education in conflict-affected contexts. Interest in this area has resurfaced over recent decades in response to two key factors. The first was the recognition that ‘institutions’ and ‘good governance’ are significant determinants of growth (Stiglitz, 1998; World Bank 1997). Secondly, development partners recognised that programmes were failing to deliver, not because of technical flaws, but due to the particular ways they interacted with formal and informal institutions, customs and local practices (Leftwich, 2005). Both developments made the relationship between ‘politics’ and ‘economics’ a crucial issue for policy design; and led to an appreciation of political economy analysis (DFID, 2004; 2009). This interest increased as more aid has been allocated to conflict-affected states, where the relationships between state failure and economic collapse were all the more evident (Smith & Vaux, 2005). The review will both trace the historical development of political economy research in the field of education and review and assess the evidence emerging from the literature exploring the political economy of education in conflict affected contexts since 1980.

The Role of Education in Peacebuilding in Conflict Affected Contexts

Dr Mario Novelli, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund

This research was commissioned as part of the knowledge generation component of the Education and Emergencies and Post-Crisis Transition (EEPCT) programme, a major initiative intended to “put education in emergency and post-crisis transition countries on a viable path of sustainable progress towards quality basic education for all”. Established as a major partnership between UNICEF, the Government of the Netherlands and the European Commission, EEPCT ran from 2006 to 2011.The purpose of the study was to examine the role of education in peacebuilding in post- conflict settings and to consider how education interventions and programming could have a stronger role in the peacebuilding architecture of the UN system. Given concerns about the frequency of relapses into conflict, highlighted as a priority to be addressed by United Nations (UN) peacebuilding efforts, the subject of the study is important and highly relevant to strengthen peacebuilding efforts. The findings and insights presented in the research are intended to provide a basis for consultation and discussion within UNICEF on how the organization can most effectively contribute to peacebuilding through education.The study comprised (i) a review of research and programme literature intended to assess existing knowledge about education’s role in peacebuilding, to identify critical knowledge gaps and to analyse initiatives by UNICEF and its partners in post-conflict contexts; and (ii) three country case studies (Lebanon, Nepal and Sierra Leone) with a particular emphasis on the work of UNICEF. More information on the research, and all the projects outputs can be found here.

Rethinking Climate Change, Water & Conflict

Dr Jan Selby, Dr Clemens Hoffmann

In recent years, there has been mounting concern amongst scientific and policy making communities that climate change may prove a 'threat multiplier' to international conflict. Many have argued that we have already witnessed the 'first climate change conflict' - which is how the war in Darfur from 2003 is often described. The most frequently cited argument about the likely conflict impacts of climate change relates to its potential impacts on water resources. It has often been argued in the past that increased competition over scarce water resources may cause or contribute to inter-state and civil 'water wars'. Many argue that in an era of climate change, the risk of such water wars is greater than ever.

This project seeks to evaluate this contemporary orthodoxy by examining the links between climate change, water resources and conflict within three important 'divided environments'- Cyprus, Israel-Palestine and Sudan. All three are geographically partitioned territories, and have all been sites of ongoing or stalled peace processes. What impacts, we ask, have water and climate change issues played within these conflicts, partitions and peace processes? And what impacts might we expect them to have in the future?

Places for All?

Places for All? A Multi-Media Investigation of Citizenship, Work and Belonging in a Fast-Changing Provincial City.

This Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities Programme Fellowship runs from March 2011 to March 2013. The Fellowship is a collaboration between the AHRC and the Royal Society of Arts Citizen Power Peterborough Programme and between AHRC Fellow Ben Rogaly and colleagues Mukul Ahmed, Teresa Cairns, Denis Doran, Liz Hingley, Raminder Kaur and Kaveri Qureshi .

The central contention of this research is that a person’s attachment to the place where they live is shaped by their relations with other people in that place and by the ongoing and shifting connectionsthey and others have to people and places further away. The people of Peterborough, including the long-settled majority ethnic (‘white’) communities, have diverse geographical and national heritages. Using a combination of film, photography, oral history and theatre, the research is examining how much it is possible to create a sense of the commonality of this experience itself, within the specific geography and history of Peterborough and its environs. For further information and links to research outputs please visit the project website.

Amazonian Dark Earths

Through the Theme of Global Transformations researchers are rethinking social adaptation in the context of changing environments and the global economy.

By revealing the existence of anthropogenic dark earths in tropical West Africa, Sussex researchers hope to build on indigenous farming knowledge and practices in efforts to intensify farming, and in ways that mitigate climate change. For more information, refer to the 2011 Annual Research Review.

CREATE

The Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE) is a five-year programme of research, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), with partner institutions in Bangladesh, Ghana, India, South Africa and the UK.

Over 80 million children in the developing world are not enrolled in school and many more fail to attend regularly or attain basic skills. At least 250 million fail to access secondary schooling to grade 9. CREATE’s research aims to increase knowledge and understanding of the reasons why so many children fail to access and complete basic education successfully. It analyses policy and practice with the aim of reducing educational exclusion and expanding access to basic education for children between the ages of 5 and 15 years. CREATE uses an expanded vision of access that includes meaningful learning, sustained access and access provided equitably.

CREATE is co-ordinated from the Centre for International Education, University of Sussex.

If you would like to read more about this programme please contact the programme Director, Professor Keith Lewin or visit the CREATE website.

Behaviour Change and Water Demand Management

Dr Jan Selby, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Sussex University, presents eight major theses about how the problem of water demand management should be understood and approached by engineers, assorted water people and other individuals.On 22nd November 2011, Dr Jan Selby gave a presentation to the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Academy of Engineering which containted eight major theses about different ways of addressing the problem of water demand management.These include reflecting on previously insufficient definitions of 'behaviour change', exploring some of the paradoxes and fears involved in modern water consumption and the consideration of 'privacy' for today's water supply, both in national and international contexts.A pdf copy of Dr Selby's paper 'Behaviour Change and Water Demand Management' is available:

'Behaviour Change and Water Demand Management' [PDF 174 KB]

Collaborative research on the meteorological and botanical history of the Indian Ocean, 1600-1900

Dr Vinita Damodaran, Senior Lecturer in South Asian History, presents her AHRC funded research on the meteorological and botanical history of the Indian Ocean (1600-1900) which will focus on a number of important questions relevant to the future of humanity.

The network which has recently received AHRC funding will address some of the most serious challenges to the future of humanity: global warming, extreme climate events, deforestation, desertification, famine, inequity, pollution and land degradation, through an interdisciplinary approach to historical records that document alterations in the climate and responses to them in the past.
The project will form part of a larger research agenda by the Centre for World Environmental History (CWEH) at Sussex to explore the technical and intellectual issues around integrating diverse source materials to answer questions about the integration of various different types of sources for the study of climatic and environmental change. It builds on existing relationships CWEH has developed over the last few years with Kew Gardens, the British Library, the Natural History Museum, the MET office, JNU in Delhi and the French Institute, Pondicherry. The data that will be generated by the network participants will be highly beneficial to map climate change in the region: existing initiatives include the ACRE project undertaken in collaboration with the MET office. The network would also build on previous AHRC initiatives, including Researching Environmental Change Networks and the Historic Weather network. It will add a new element to existing collaborative network projects through its regional focus, its research focus on botany and meteorology and its interdisciplinary nature.

The project builds on earlier work at the Centre on Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911), in particular his correspondence with colleagues in India, including at the Kolkata botanical gardens. The transcription of the correspondence will complement several resources which are already in the public domain – including the Himalayan Journals (1854) and the Introduction to the Flora Indica (1855) and the sections of Hooker's herbarium which have been digitised. It will also run alongside the ongoing collaborations around the Nathaial Wallich materials by Kew, the Natural History Museum, and the British Library. It will promote links between UK and Indian institutions and help prioritise fragile materials held in Kolkata for conservation and digitalisation. The Hooker transcription project will act as a pilot project for a larger academic project on the subject of colonial botanical gardens and the potential uses of manuscript and herbaria collections, including in studies of climate change. Researchers involved in the projects which is led by Dr Vinita Damodaran include Jim Livesey, Rob Iliffe, Anna Winterbottom and Lowell Woodcock.

A pdf copy of Dr Damodaran's 'Visual Evidence: J D Hooker Indian Expedition (1847-1851) Pilot Project' is available:

Visual Evidence: J D Hooker Indian Expedition (1847-1851) [PDF 450 KB]