IGSD News

The Radical Imaginaries-Radical Transformations (RIRT) thematic initiative, under the Sustainability Spotlight, organised the second network-building event, led by Dr Marit Hammond (PAIS), Prof. Graeme Macdonald (ECLS) and Prof. Elena Korosteleva (IGSD). It involved two panels - a 'politics'- and 'arts'-focused involving external speakers - Prof. Albena Azmanova (City), Dr Carl Death (Manchester), Dr Natalie Pollard (Exeter) and Dr Orion Maxted (VUB) - and internal speakers - Dr Nick Lawrence (ECLS), Dr Jonathan Skinner (ECLS) and Carla Washbourne (CIM). The workshop focused on the key questions around future climate and power imaginaries, to see if just and sustainable transitions are possible, and under what conditions. The workshop's aims included building a network of like-minded scholars - it was attended by over 60(!) participants - capture ideas/ways of thinking (Thank you NiftyFox!) and produce a position paper, based on roundtable discussions at the workshop (working on it!). Thank you to all who attended, and to Cher Zou, Jason Snow and Tanya Liguori for supporting this event!

Prof. Korosteleva was invited to speak at the EUI workshop on 28 April, with a focus of developing an integrated resilience approach, with reference to Ukraine and other countries. The workshop organised by Prof. Inna Melnykovska Jean Monnet Fellow, Robert Schuman Centre (EUI), innovatively looked at the concept, case-studies, research methods, and designs of the future, to capture the moments of resilience nurturance. This workshop also drew on expertise of EUI Professors, Trine Flockahart (Multi-oder world) and Kalypso Nicolaidis (demoi-cracy), as well as resilience conceptualisation by Prof. Korosteleva (Warwick) and other speakers.

https://www.eui.eu/events?id=585709

Delighted to have shared my book Complexity and Community in IR: nurturing resilience in Central Eurasia (OUP2025) at the School of Transnational Governance European University Institute at the invitation of Trine Flockhart. I am exceptionally grateful to both Trine as Chair, and Liv Nelsen as my discussant; as well as to the meticulous organisation of the event by the STG staff and of course, to the audience and their thought-provoking questions, always. The AGMOW project, focusing on Anticipating Governance in the Multi-Order World, is more topical than ever before: it looks at the crisis of the Liberal International Order, and the disruption of the Global Rules-Based Order, and the emergence of other alternatives. Above all, the project drills into how orders emerge and are situated, at the sameness and diversity; and this is where resilience-governance, premised on societal agency (or Community of Relations) becomes to play a decisive role, for orders to be resilient, and sustainable, in a crisis-prone world. Watch the space, for Special Forums in relation to AGMOW, and new discussions - to be continued!

https://academic.oup.com/book/61660

https://www.eui.eu/events?id=583863

Dr Hita Unnikrishnan has been awarded a substantial research grant by the British Academy following their International Interdisciplinary Research Projects Awards 2026.

Dr Unnikrishnan, an assistant professor within IGSD, received almost £300,000 towards her research project titled ‘Building Resilience through Equitable Action on Temperature, Heat, and indoor Emissions’ (BREATHE), which is being co-investigated by Dr Lavanya Suresh (Birla Institute of Technology and Science), Dr Manik Gupta (Birla Institute of Technology and Science) and Dr Deepshikha Batheja (One Health Trust).

The BREATHE project, which will be carried out over a period of two years, aims to investigate how historical and intersectional inequalities influence differential experiences of heat stress and indoor air pollution (IAP) among members of peri-urban households within the global south.

Working on the hypothesis that women and vulnerable family members within patriarchally-structured households are more likely to suffer from higher rates of heat stress and IAP (due to factors such as more time spent within the home and exposure to unclean cooking fuels), Dr Unnikrishnan and her co-investigators will be combining historical research with large household surveys, satellite data analysis and machine learning models in the Bidar and Chikkaballapur districts of south Indian Karnataka. The project will be pivotal to understanding existing barriers regarding equitable health outcomes and the gendered considerations of climate impact, demonstrating the social and health implications of global sustainability that our School’s research division works tirelessly to raise awareness of.

We congratulate Dr Unnikrishnan on her outstanding achievement. Watch this space for more updates on this project to come!