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Institute for Global Sustainable Development

Navigating Sustainable Futures: Connecting Ideas, Policies, People, and Actions

"Sustainability is about sustaining life, and sustained life is a property of an ecosystem rather than a single organism or species. Nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities, and as no individual organism can exist in isolation, sustainability is a property of an entire interconnected web of relations" (Evitts, Seale & Skybrook 2010)
We are a community of relations, across and beyond the University, and we are here to navigate, through research, education, practice, and engagement, a sustainable way(s) to life, and planetary wellbeing.

Our Vision: IGSD as a gateway to sustainable (GTS)

The Institute of Global Sustainable Development (IGSD) was established in 2019 with the aim of spearheading knowledge creation that facilitates the transition toward a more sustainable, prosperous, healthier, and equitable world for all. In 2022, under the guidance of the new Director, Professor Elena Korosteleva, the IGSD is poised to serve as the primary hub for research on global sustainable development at Warwick. It will collaborate with all faculties, relevant research networks and centres, thereby actively contributing to the University’s Research and Sustainability Strategy.

Our Mission

To enhance Warwick’s leadership in transdisciplinary research on global sustainable development.

Our Strategy

To actualise its vision, IGSD will pursue a three-fold strategy:

  1. Advancing Thematic Portfolios: IGSD aims to expand its thematic portfolios, focusing on cutting-edge research in:
    • environmental governance in the Anthropocene;
    • resilience as a multi-species community's response to the VUCA world, and
    • complex eco-systems and climate change, with water security being a central focus.

  1. Gateway to Sustainability: IGSD will position itself as the gateway to sustainability by actively contributing to Warwick's Way to Sustainable through research and practice.

  2. Leadership and Recognition: IGSD will actively champion its leadership and research approach in global sustainable development and be recognised on both nationally and globally.

Through our research we tackle the following SDGs

UN SDGs

Our Goals

  • Launch and contribute to the implementation of Warwick's Sustainability Strategy, and its research pillar
  • Visualise and develop research networks on sustainable development across and beyond Warwick
  • Launch and grow an ECR Sustainability Training School (ECR STS) at Warwick and its strategic partners
  • Launch and grow an Annual Sustainability Conference (ASC) for scholarly exchange on global sustainable development
  • Develop large-scale funding bids, leveraging Warwick’s diverse range of sustainable development scholars
  • Grow policy impact on sustainable development, locally and internationally.

Our Activity

  • We will develop and leverage interdisciplinary expertise on global sustainable development by working in partnership with transdisciplinary and non-academic stakeholders across the globe.
  • We will connect with researchers across and beyond Warwick to explore together new funding opportunities and to think about the connections between disciplines.
  • We will launch an ECR Sustainability Training School (ECR STS) to offer training in transdisciplinary sustainability research skills, community, and policy impact.
  • Working alongside Warwick's Global Research Priorities programme, our activity will include a rolling schedule of events in support of network building.
  • We will work with research centres, programmes, and institutes to highlight and visualise the breadth of the contribution Warwick makes to GSD research.
  • We will seek to cultivate a supportive GSD awareness culture that shares best practice to enhance research, for example by delivering transdisciplinary methods labs.
  • We will set up an IGSD Thematic Fellows network to develop transdisciplinary linkages and research agenda on global sustainable development.
  • We will set an IGSD Honorary Fellows Board consisting of policymakers, practitioners and other non-academic stakeholders to advise and support us in our mission.
  • We aim to launch a flagship Annual Sustainability Conference and contribute advice and strategic policy recommendations for UNFCCC COP and other decision-making bodies, such as the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

For more information about Warwick's Global Sustainable Development degree programmes, see the School of Cross-Faculty Studies