Global Sustainable Development News

Be inspired by Emma Kennedy, actress, writer, TV and radio presenter.

We are delighted to welcome Emma as our first inspiring women speaker for the 2018/19 academic year. Hear her personal journey, highlights and challenges along the way.

Emma was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford where she worked in comedy troupes. After graduating she trained and practiced as a solicitor, dramatically changing direction in her career after 3 years.

She became a script writer for Giedroye’s double act with Sue Perkins and worked as a writer for the Mel and Sue series Late Lunch. She presented the last series of The Real Holiday Show on Channel 4 in 2000. She has since made appearances in various TV shows Goodness Gracious Me, This Morning With Richard Not Judy (with Lee and Herring), Jonathan Creek alongside Alan Davies and Caroline Quentin, People Like Us (with Chris Langham) and hit BBC comedy The Smoking Room, along with appearing in several of The Mark Steel Lectures. as well as in several plays and radio shows. She was also a movie reviewer on Five's Terry and Gaby Show. In addition to this, she has made several appearances on Big Brother's Little Brother. Among other radio work, she was a regular on the BBC Radio 2 comedy That Was Then, This Is Now with Richard Herring.

Emma has written for radio, television and theatre, and has also written various children’s books. Her first book, How To Bring Up Your Parents came out in August 2007. Her second book, The Tent, The Bucket and Me, recounting her childhood camping experiences, was published in April 2009. This was adapted by Kennedy as writer of the six-part BBC TV series The Kennedys.

Register Here

0930 - 1400, 31st October 2018, Scarman, University of Warwick

To celebrate UN World Cities Day, the Sustainable Cities GRP is holding a half-day event to showcase cities research at Warwick. Besides offering the opportunity to hear more about the wide variety of research being undertaken in the cities space, this event will also offer the opportunity to advance university wide relationships and to learn more about research opportunities linked to cities.

This conference will:

• Explore Warwick’s research in the cities space
• Facilitate networking, discussion and collaboration between researchers and others keen to engage with and consider the new urban agenda and the challenges that cities face
• Identify areas where the Sustainable Cities GRP can support the development of new, interdisciplinary research at Warwick.

Join the conversation

Whether your research is in a field directly related to cities or you can see how it could be applied to cities, we would love you to join our conversation. We encourage students at all levels who share our interest in sustainable cities and have a desire to learn more about Warwick’s work in this area to register. We welcome attendance by those working in local, regional and national institutions, NGOs and industry who share our interest in addressing the challenges faced by cities.

This half-day conference is available to students and staff.

Register here

Good luck to our Cross-Faculty students from Global Sustainable Development and Liberal Arts who will be presenting their research on 25th September, 2018 at the International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR). The two-day annual forum utilises video technology allowing students to present the very best in undergraduate research to a global audience.

Tuesday 25th Sept

08:00-09:30 (Oculus 1.06) - Nicola Blasetti (GSD) - Climate Action in Europe: the costs of climate change and the necessity for adaptation in the EU Member States

08:00-09:30 (Oculus 1.06) - Constance Frohly (GSD) Understanding inequalities in multicultural cities as a dynamic process

11:30-13:00 - (Oculus 1.09) - Rhys Hillan (GSD) - Demonstrating the correlation between food insecurity and mental health issues and the positive role food sovereignty can play in addressing this

11:30-13:00 - (Oculus 1.01) - Virág Belavarí (Liberal Arts) Understanding Revolution Narratives: The Role of Topophilia and Topophobia

14:00-15:30 - (Oculus 1.06) - Davida Mottram-Epson (Liberal Arts) Iranian Women and the State: exploring stasis-kinesis in the revolution through Iranian Literature

17:30-19:00 - (Oculus 1.01) - Najma Ahmad (Liberal Arts) Using gender quotas to meet Sustainable Development Goal 5, gender inequality: A case study analysis of India, Rwanda and Norway

17:30-19:00 - (Oculus 1.01) - Anna Kindleysides-Seidl (Liberal Arts) Blinded by the light: The Moscow Metro and the political use of prestige projects

We wish you all every success!

UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development (UKSSD) found that out of 143 relevant targets, the UK is performing well on 24%, but 57% remain "inadequate", with a futher 15% "poor". The report highlights for the first time how the UK's sustainable development measures in the relation to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). Water quality was highlighted as an area where the UK is exceeding expectation, however SDG's including "Reduced Inequalities" and "Decent Work and Economic Growth" are indicated as key areas of concern.

The report can be accessed online from UKSSD's website via this link.

You can find out more about UKSSD here.

Julie will be using the URSS funding to combine interests developed through two Second Year Global Sustainable Development (GSD) modules Security, Sovereignty and Sustainability in the Global Food System and Keeping the Phoenix Flying or Clipping its Wings?: Learning through Student Research into the Praxis of ‘local’ Sustainable Development

Specifically, the inter-disciplinary research will investigate the history of hunger in Coventry since the Industrial Revolution. It will critically analyse strategies used to combat hunger in relation to broader economic, social and political contexts. Analysis will be based on archival research and primary data generated through interviews.

It is hoped that this work will illustrate how students can feed into the University’s emerging agenda of local and regional engagement, currently being championed in the department’s research-based teaching of local sustainable development in the City of Coventry.

Anna's project will focus on the large-scale investment in renewable energy in Masdar City, which the UAE government hope will become a platform for sustainable energy research. It will explore the extent to which there is a conflict of interest in oil-rich countries between wealth accumulation from oil dominance and the investment in clean energy solutions for future energy security. Anna will visit the UAE this summer to interview representatives from the country's academic, industrial and governmental sectors.

Many congratulations to the winner of our Global Sustainable Development Photo Competition, Katharine McEnery.

Students were invited to submit creative images reflecting on the themes "What does Global Sustainable Development look like?" and "You know you're studying Global Sustainable Development when...".

The judges thought that Katharine's photo was an excellent and imaginative representation of the chosen theme.

The School for Cross-Faculty Studies' student-run magazine GLOBUS features an article by Dr Bryan Brazeau, titled 'A Sustainable Serenissima'.

"Degree programmes at Warwick, particularly in the School for Cross-Faculty Studies, are continually innovating, expanding, and evolving. A Sustainable Serenissima is an introduction to a new and upcoming module, centred on the study of Venice, offered by the School, written by the Module Convenor, Dr. Bryan Brazeau. As a cultural capital situated on an island, Venice is a hub for themes explored by Liberal Arts and Global Sustainable Development." (T Olive, Editor)

We are pleased to open our annual Essay Competition for Year 12 students with an interest in Global Sustainable Development. Entrants this year have the choice of the following essay titles, as suggested by our current students:

1. As the negotiations around Brexit are ongoing, what issues of Sustainable Development should our leaders be concerned with?

2. “The expression ‘Think Global Act Local’ offers the best guidance to achieving Global Sustainable Development”. Discuss.

3. To what extent is Global Sustainable Development primarily about how we manage environmental resources?

The competition deadline is 30th March 2018, and entrants can submit their essay online now.

We look forward to reading the entries, and wish the students the best of luck.

The 2017 #KnowYourGoals campaign, pioneered by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network – Youth Initiative (SDSN Youth), is a global initiative to empower communities to take ownership of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by inviting local organizers, particularly young people, to raise awareness of the SDGs within local campuses and communities.

The campaign will allow local organizers and partners to raise awareness of the SDGs and to celebrate success stories which showcase wonderful examples of local solutions that are tackling sustainable development challenges.

Find out how you can contribute to the campaign and join a global movement to empower local communities for a more sustainable future on the SDNS Youth website.