SPRU is a world-leading department where research and high-level policy advice are combined with postgraduate teaching in science, technology, and innovation policy and management. We welcome students, researchers and policymakers in business, government, and civil society organisations to find out more about us and our activities by using the links on this page.
SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research is the centre of a worldwide network of interdisciplinary researchers addressing the analysis of the rate and direction of scientific change and innovation, the promotion and management of innovation, the regulation of technological risks, the search for effective energy policies and paths to a more sustainable society.
SPRU researchers are prominent participants in global academic and policy debates concerning weapons of mass destruction, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, nuclear power, climate change, information technology, food safety, technology in development and the roles of public and private research organisations.
In SPRU we have created a unique international research culture founded on collegiality and mutual support that spans the divisions between the pursuit of competitiveness and wealth creation, social inclusion, sustainability and development. We maintain close and high-level contacts to the worlds of commercial innovation management, public policy making on science and technology, and civil society.
Professor Johan Schot
New Director of SPRU: Professor Johan Schot
Technology historian Professor Johan Schot has been appointed as the next Director of SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research at Sussex.
Professor Schot has been Professor of History of Technology at Eindhoven University of Technology for the past 14 years. He will join SPRU on 1 January 2014, when he will take over from Professor Gordon Mackerron, who is retiring after five years as Director.
At Eindhoven he leads the Technology, Innovation and Society Group whose research programme on Modern Societies in Transition was evaluated as world-leading in a 2009 assessment of research (published in 2010). Professor Schot has founded and directed several large-scale research programmes and networks, securing research grants totalling around 25 million euros.
Dr Adrian Ely
Low carbon innovation collaboration
SPRU Lecturer and STEPS Centre Head of Impact and Engagement Dr Adrian Ely is part of an international collaboration between researchers in the UK and at leading institutions in China to investigate different models of innovation and their role in low carbon transitions.
Running from late 2013 to 2016, the project will compare government-led, high-tech ‘indigenous innovation’ approaches with emergent, lower-tech approaches in the areas of agriculture, energy and mobility.
- Read more on the STEPS Centre website
The Entrepreneurial State
Prof Mazzucato's new book asks who the real big cats are in innovation
To coincide with the publication of her latest book, The Entrepreneurial State, which debunks myths about the role of the state in innovation, SPRU's R.M. Phillips Professor of Science and Technology Mariana Mazzucato gave a TEDGlobal Talk in Edinburgh on Wednesday 12 June.
Both her book and the talk tackle the same critical issues: how state investment in the past has made innovation possible for the private sector, and how governments need to continue doing this to revitalise economies.
Sussex Energy Group's research into the implications of changing energy policy
With climate change one of the biggest issues of the modern age, changing energy consumption and moving from a high- to low-carbon economy is more critical than ever.
The Sussex Energy Group uses an interdisciplinary research approach that is the hallmark of Sussex to understand the social, political and economic implications of radically changing our energy systems and moving towards a more sustainable future.