Now in only its second year, the Warwick Climate Negotiating Forum 2021, launched in 2019 by GSD students, has been awarded £10,000 in grant funding by the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning at the University of Warwick.

Earlier this year, Maddie Booth, a Politics, International Studies and GSD graduate, led a partnership project to help students interested in careers in sustainability. In her role as Sustainability Officer at Solihull College and University Centre, along with the Sustainable Development team at Solihull Council, Maddie organised online webinars and resources featuring local businesses, universities, and other organisations. Staff, current students, and alumni from the GSD Department were involved in the project, sharing their experiences to help students learn more about sustainability careers.

Warwick Sutton Scholars is a two-year programme for Year 8 and 9 students from under-represented backgrounds in higher education across the West Midlands. Coordinated by Warwick's Widening Participation and Outreach team, the aim of the programme is to inspire students to consider university as an option for the future.

The Year 9 programme is run in collaboration with the GSD Department. Due to the pandemic, this year the programme was run entirely online, with more (shorter) events. The participants worked in groups on a research project titled 'Every Plate Tells a Story', aimed at addressing a problem linked to food and sustainable development. They established a research question, conducted primary research (surveys), and designed an intervention aimed at tackling the problem.

Our GSD finalists were awarded their degrees on Monday 12 July 2021. The past two years have been particularly challenging and we are so proud of everyone who has graduated this year.

^{Image credit: Future Leaders 2020-21}

We are delighted to share the news that final-year Liberal Arts student, Matilda Oduntan, and Sociology and GSD graduate, Seiwaa Osei Afriyie, have been named among the UK’s most outstanding African and African Caribbean future leaders.

^{Image credit: Dr. Cécile Girardin, University of Oxford}

The Climate Exp0 conference, hosted in May this year, aimed to showcase the latest thinking and international research relevant to climate change and raise ambition for tangible outcomes at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November. Online and free, the conference was designed to support the climate change research agenda and stimulate virtual collaboration among different stakeholders. Current GSD student, Scarlett Scott-Nadal, took part in Climate Exp0 as a student volunteer; and recent GSD graduate, Mia Sannapureddy, was selected to present her research on the premise for a fossil-free bond index. Hear from Scarlett and Mia below about their experiences of the conference.

The latest issue of Reinvention: an International Journal of Undergraduate Research presents a diverse range of content and themes that all comment on ideas of interconnectedness, interdisciplinarity, and sustainability. Moreover, it includes several contributions from students and staff in the GSD Department!

Current and former students from the School for Cross-faculty Studies presented their research on 12-13 April at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR) 2021.

Established in 2011, BCUR is the largest conference in the UK dedicated exclusively to undergraduate research, promoting and sharing research in all disciplines. The conference usually takes place each year at a different University. This year, the University of Leeds delivered the conference virtually.

The 5th Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference, hosted by the University of Warwick, took place virtually on 15 April 2021 and brought together a diverse range of speakers and audiences including those involved in Liberal Arts, joint honours degrees, and single interdisciplinary modules.

Staff and students from the School for Cross-faculty Studies presented during the conference, sharing their experiences with collaboration, co-construction of knowledge, and practice underpinning interdisciplinary teaching and learning.