In this piece, Dr Ed Loveman discusses how a significant turning point in his life would eventually lead to him becoming one of the first members of teaching staff at Warwick’s newly established Design Studies division.

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In our University Journey blog series, the team behind our Global Sustainable Development department share their personal experiences of university and how it helped them get to where they are today. Dr Romain Chenet is GSD’s Senior Teaching Fellow, as well as our Director of Undergraduate Studies and Admissions. Romain here shares early experiences of university and how GSD has developed to prepare students for the modern world.

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On our flexible GSD MASc course, you will combine academic learning with practical action and applied thinking to tackle problems of global sustainable development. We caught up with GSD MASc student Ilaria to discuss her experiences of postgraduate study and why she would recommend the GSD MASc programme to others.

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Our new Service Design with UX for Social Impact module introduces students to Service and UX Design from a digital development angle. We recently sat down with our first ever student cohort in a roundtable session to talk about their experiences of the module.

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Our innovative MASc in Global Sustainable Development offers a unique opportunity to join a community of transdisciplinary experts and practitioners with a passion for research and teaching. We spoke to one of our current students Karolina, to understand why she pursued postgraduate study and find out more about her experiences of the course.

There has been a prominent and growing realisation that the current “real” global food prices – as adjusted for inflation - are high, relative to the past.

Example headlines include:

“Prices are at the highest since 2014, risking faster inflation” (Bloomberg, May 2021).

However, this representation is inaccurate. Based on simple observation of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) publically available graphics (2021), it is more accurate to say that:

‘It is on average harder to buy food today in 2021, than it has been since 2014, and in fact for most of the noughties, the entire decade of the 1990s, and the 1980s; most of the 1970s, and every year of the 1960s! Food is more expensive today than it has been for the vast majority of modern recorded history.'

While significant media attention on the impact of COVID-19 has empirical justification, most FAO crop reports cite unpredictable weather to explain supply contraction.

This might not be the beginning of the end of the world; but if and when that does come, it will very likely look something like this.

The dual issues of chronic food shortage and inequality currently driving social unrest in South Africa offer further insights into potential futures where the injustice of our global Climate Emergency remains unchallenged.

Read the latest Think Development blog post by Dr Alastair Smith, Senior Teaching Fellow in GSD.

On Wednesday 9 December 2020, the School for Cross-faculty Studies hosted a 'Work Placement Talk and Live Q&A event', organised by the School's Employability and Placement Manager, Bodrun Nahar. The event aimed to give current students in the School the opportunity to hear directly from students who undertook a work placement. The speakers were encouraged to share their experiences of their work placements, including the challenges, the benefits, and their advice for any students considering doing a work placement.

Our students have the chance to spend a semester abroad in their second year of study. In this post, Katharina Neisinger, Maja Voelkel, and Luke Netherclift reflect on their time at Monash University, and how it was cut short by the outbreak of COVID-19.

L-R: Seiwaa Osei Afriyie, H.E Samira Bawumia (Republic of Ghana)

On 25-26 January 2020, the Warwick Africa Summit 2020 took place in the Oculus Building at the University of Warwick. The Warwick Africa Summit is an interdisciplinary conference focused on African development and is solely organised by students. Students from the GSD Department were part of the team behind the Warwick Africa Summit 2020, including final year Sociology and GSD student Seiwaa Osei Afriyie (President of the Warwick Africa Summit), second year Single Honours GSD student Taigh Adebajo (Co-Director of Finance) and second year Single Honours GSD student Trinity Awelo (Logistics). As President of the Warwick Africa Summit, Seiwaa has put together her highlights of the event.

Senior Teaching Fellow in the Liberal Arts Department Dr Bryan Brazeau looks back on the largely successful Venice and Sustainability project, hosted in Liberal Arts. Find out what staff and students discovered in this innovative problem-based module during their time in Coventry and Venice, and watch a media project looking at cultural sustainability in the city produced by Global Sustainable Development students.