Global Sustainable Development News

We are delighted to announce that Global Sustainable Development has been ranked 5th out of 66 UK departments in the Guardian University Guide subject league tables published on Friday 7th June 2019. This places the department in the 'top 5' in the country, among leading departments in Geography and Environmental Studies, such as St Andrews, Oxford, Durham and Cambridge.

Published in the latest issue of The Journal of Development Studies, Assistant Professor Marco J Haenssgen challenges the problematic myth of ubiquitous mobile phones in low- and middle-income countries.

You are all invited to the following seminar:

Les Raconteuses du Levant — untold stories of Female Hakawatis and the challenges they pose to sustainable development discourse in the Arabic-speaking world

Professor Cathia Jenainati is a multidisciplinary academic whose teaching and research interests range from Literature to Enviromental Studies. She is the Head of the School for Cross-faculty Studies.

You are all invited to the following seminar:

Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change Among Smallholder Farmers in Kagera Region, Tanzania

Dr. Theobald Theodory is a social scientist focusing on environment and natural resource management. He has published extensively in areas of climate change adaptation, land investments, water resources governance and natural resources management.

Come along to an insightful Wilder Future evening and find out what you can do to help to achieve nature's recovery. Hear from leading conservationists, academics and our GSD student and GLOBUS Editor-in-Chief Todd Olive!

Further information on the event (organised by a partnership between Warwick University, Coventry University, the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and the NUS) is available here. Keynote speakers include Sir John Lawton and Baroness Parminter.

The event takes place on Thursday 9th May in the Oculus Building (OC1.05). Doors open at 6pm (event starts at 6:45pm).

Tickets are free, but booking is required.

You are all invited to the following seminar:

David Solomon is a University of Warwick alumnus who studied Economic and International Studies in 1995-98. Today, he is the CEO of Blueprints, whose mission is to make a meaningful change to address the problems facing some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. Blueprints intends to do this by replacing spontaneous generosity with scalable investment and it was built to establish economic justice, to enable indigenous and developing countries to secure an equitable share of their own development.

David will talk about building a new model for economic development through his organisation Blueprints, which works in Cuba, Colombia and Costa Rica. David has advised Heads of State, Heads of Intelligence and notable global leaders on how to create a more equitable path to economic development.

The URSS (Undergraduate Research Support Scheme) enables undergraduate students at the University of Warwick to carry out an interdisciplinary research project over the summer, either in the UK or abroad, for a period of 6-10 weeks. Five GSD students managed to secure a bursary this year: Anna Matrai, Joaquín Salido Castilla, Molly Hamer-Nickells, Nicola Blasetti and Priscilla Tay. Their research projects will be presented in the form of a poster showcase at the annual URSS Research Showcase, which will take place at the start of next academic year.

Eight final year GSD students presented their research on 15th-16th April at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR) 2019, held at the Treforest Campus of the University of South Wales.

The conference promotes undergraduate research in all disciplines and, with 400+ delegates this year, it was an incredible event for our students to disseminate their work, display their research excellence and get to meet students and staff across the whole country. The event included also a conference dinner on 15th April opened by the First Minister of Wales.

Many congratulations to Anna, Arifa, Cammy, Christian, Constance, Dee, Federico and Nicola for producing some impressive projects!

Following their learning – through modules such as Environmental Principles for GSD and Challenges of Climate Change – Global Sustainable Development students have led a coalition of campus organisations to petition the University on the issue of Climate Change.

Dr Nicholas Bernards has been awarded an Early Career Small Research Grant by the British International Studies Association (BISA), for a project on 'The Colonial Origins of Policy Failures in Global Development Governance'.

The grant for GBP 2,950 will fund preliminary research at the National Archives on the development of financial systems in colonial Africa, focusing in particular on debates between 1930 and 1960 about access to credit for African borrowers in British African colonies. The project examines the particular geographies and institutional forms that regional and territorial financial systems took on in British Africa. It emphasises the ways in which the uneven development of financial systems in the colonial era have posed distinct limits on contemporary global policy frameworks, particularly efforts to promote 'financial inclusion'.

Dr Bernards will present on this research in progress at the BISA 44th annual conference in London on June 12.