Dr Rasheed Sulaiman V, Director of the Centre for Research on Innovation and Science Policy (CRISP) and STRINGS partner, reviews Inclusive Innovation: Evidence and Options in Rural India by Rajeswari S Raina and Keshab Das (eds). Read the full review.
STRINGS partner the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched the 30th anniversary edition of the Human Development Report (HDR), The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene.
Thirty years ago, UNDP created a new way to conceive and measure progress. Instead of using growth in GDP as the sole measure of development, they ranked the world’s countries by their human development: by whether people in each country have the freedom and opportunity to live the lives they value.
The 2020 HDR doubles down on the belief that people’s agency and empowerment can bring about the action we need if we are to live in balance with the planet in a fairer world. It shows that we are at an unprecedented moment in history, in which human activity has become a dominant force shaping the planet. These impacts interact with existing inequalities, threatening significant development reversals. Nothing short of a great transformation – in how we live, work and cooperate – is needed to change the path we are on. The Report explores how to jumpstart that transformation.
Based on work by STRINGS partner CWTS, we have developed a tool to explore the extent to which research communities (i.e. different areas of research) relate, or not, to SDGs.
Since May, we have worked hard to define the set of search terms we use to identify academic papers that relate to the SDGs. Differently from most exercises like this (such as SIRIS, Dimensions, Elsevier, Aurora Universities, and Bergen), we assess the allocation of publications across research communities that, as a whole, may be working on SDG related topics. This approach acknowledges that what may be contributing to the SDGs is a combination of research outputs, rather than a single paper.
Prof Joanna Chataway talks to Prof Geoff Mulgan CBE and Dr Erica Thompson about the complexities of modelling and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in the first of the STRINGS webinar series.
During the summer, STRINGS co-investigator Dr Tommaso Ciarli took part in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) Division for Inclusive Social Development (DISD)’s Expert Group Meeting on the Socially just transition towards sustainable development: The role of digital technologies on social development and well-being of all, alongside Prof Maria Savona from the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU).
The meeting aimed to provide the UN Commission for Social Development with concrete, evidence-based policy recommendations ahead of its meeting in February 2021.
National authorities in Argentina have pledged to start the process of regulating the national Chagas Law, which was enacted 12 years ago. Chagas is the main endemic disease in Argentina and constitutes a socio-environmental problem that exceeds rural areas and can be prevented and controlled. When the actions of the state are not enough, what is the contribution that open and citizen science can make to this problem?
STRINGS researcher Dr Valeria Arza speaks to the TSS Agency at the Universidad Nacional de San Martin (UNSAM). Read the full article.
On 4 September 2020 STRINGS held a lively and engaging workshop on mapping research related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), featuring 12 presentations from colleagues in academia, government and the private sector.
STRINGS expert Zeinab El Maadawi has authored a chapter in a new report that explores how humanities should address major current transformations regarding science and technology and their ethical challenges.
A new book by David Maggs and John Robinson explores the social agency of art and its connection to complex issues of sustainability. The book proposes a theory of art aiming to preserve the integrity of arts practices within transdisciplinary mandates. This approach is then explored through a series of case studies developed in collaboration with some of Canada’s most prominent artists.
The book, published by Routledge, is available here.
Rajeswari S. Raina and Keshab Das are the editors of a new book that explores the role of inclusive innovation for development in rural India. The book presents cases of substantive technological changes and institutional reforms enabling inclusive innovation in rural manufacturing, sustainable agriculture, and health services.
It also discusses the processes of technological learning in traditional informal networks, as well as in formal modern commodity markets. These cases offer lessons to enable learning and change within the state and formal science and technology (S&T) organizations.
The book, published by Springer, can be accessed here.