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Selected Research Projects

    Knowledge Technologies for Democracy

    AI and big data are fundamentally interwoven into our societies, culture and conceptions of democratic governance and exchange. They pose risks to our democracies at the same time as they have the potential to enhance it. KT4D will explore how these technologies can foster more inclusive civic participation in democracy, and how AI and big data can facilitate new democratic innovations and enrich democratic deliberation within participatory fora. To achieve this, we will develop and validate tools, guidelines and a Digital Democracy Lab demonstrators platform. These results will be validated across three user needs scenarios: 1) building capacity for citizens and citizen-facing Civil Society Organisations; 2) creating regulatory tools and services for Policy and CSOs; and 3) improving awareness of how to design ethical and democratic principles in academic and industrial software development.

    KT4D WebsiteLink opens in a new window

    Future Democracy

    Future Democracy investigates how democracy can be shaped to address the challenges posed by technological development and climate change. In particular, it asks what sort of democratic innovations can address short-termism in democracy, foster responsiveness to local needs, and foster international cooperation. Various forms of citizens assemblies and future-oriented institutions are considered, along with technological enhancements to democratic arrangements.

     

    Governing AI and Biotech Risk

    Advances in emerging technology including artificial intelligence and biotechnology will transform the security and economic landscape. Governing AI and Biotech Risk explores the ethical, political and psychological underpinnings of effective governance that can meet the challenges posed by technological risks.

     

    Supporting Just Response and Recovery to COVID-19 in Informal Urban Settlements

    The project works with the organisation Slum Dwellers International and its Youth Federation members in eight Sub-Saharan African cities (Lagos, Freetown, Nairobi, Lusaka, Harare, Johannesburg, Gqeberha and Cape Town) to understand inequalities and injustices associated with COVID-19 impacts and policy responses in informal urban settlements. The project will facilitate the creation of a series of video-diaries informed by ethical analysis, co-designed and produced with youth groups in the cities, which will provide the foundation for research articles and policy work with local authorities.

    Supporting Just Response WebsiteLink opens in a new window

    The COVID Observatories: Monitoring the interaction of pandemics, climate risks, and food systems

    Indigenous Peoples are believed to be at particularly high risk from COVID, exacerbated by climate risks and socio-economic stresses. There is emerging evidence that national responses to the pandemic are compounding the vulnerability of Indigenous Peoples, exacerbated by little—if any—understanding on the unique pathways through which COVID will affect them. This project addresses this knowledge and policy gap by documenting, monitoring, and examining how COVID is interacting with multiple stresses to affect the food systems of Indigenous Peoples globally, and by examining issues of ethics and justice associated with policy responses. The project works with 20 Indigenous peoples in 13 countries.

    Covid Observatories WebsiteLink opens in a new window

    Inserting Ethics into Adaptation and Resilience Policy

    The project is a collaboration with the University of Cape Town and with Cape Town city’s climate adaptation department to look at how issues of ethics and justice can be incorporated into responses to climate-related risks and city policymaking more generally. Cape Town has already come perilously close to a city-wide drought and regularly suffers from flooding: the project seeks to ensure that the most vulnerable communities such as informal settlements are incorporated in an ethical manner into city-level protection plans. By doing so, it aims to model a pathway to inserting ethics into adaptation and resilience policy that can be utilised in other settings.

    Ethical deliberation in policymaking videoLink opens in a new window

     

    Technological Risks in Development

    Food insecurity poses a major risk to human lives and well-being in the Global South, especially in the face of climate change. In this project, we investigate how technologies that have been introduced as solutions to food insecurity have contributed to the creation of new risks, and ask how such technologies should might be governed ethically to reduce these risks. We focus on the loss of biodiversity as a result of the introduction of GMO crops, and the rise of antimicrobial resistance as a result of the overuse of antibiotics to combat communicable diseases in crops and livestock.

     

    New Approaches to Equitable Resilience

    A variety of behavioural and structural factors impact individuals’ ability to think and act in resilient ways. Based on field research in Kenya, the first aim of this project is to shed new light on key psychological factors that drive resilience, and determine whether this information can facilitate predictive modelling of resilient behaviour. The second aim of the project is to understand the ethical implications of individual differences in resilient behaviour. For example, are there reasons to direct particular attention and resources to those who, by virtue of psychological characteristics, do not easily adopt resilient behaviours?

     

    Challenging Inequalities: An Indo-European Perspective

    Challenging Inequalities is an interdisciplinary collaboration across humanities and social sciences, with participants from India, UK, France and Norway. The project seeks to integrate cutting edge philosophical work on the salient ethical dimensions of inequality with social scientific approaches, both quantitative and qualitative, to measuring and addressing inequality in international development contexts. It examines inequality from three different perspectives. First, the project addresses how inequality should be defined and measured. Second, the project looks at attitudes to inequality and inequality-reducing policies. Third, the project investigates the experience of inequality and looks at the effects of inequality on livelihoods and policy interventions.

     

    Climate Change and Urban Violence

    The two challenges of urban violence and of climate change adaptation for urban development in the Global South have been of increasing concern to the humanitarian, security, and development communities. But these two challenges have so far been treated in parallel, without a strong analytic basis for understanding the interlinkages between the two, and implications for policy interventions in both fields. The aim of the project is to develop new understanding about the interactions between urban violence and climate change risks in urban areas of the Global South. Climate and development policy in areas of urban violence raises a number of difficult ethical questions about legitimacy and authority, and about the ethics of working with ‘gangs’, which are at the core of the project.

    Why We Disagree about Resilience

    The concept of resilience is increasingly used in urban planning and disaster risk reduction. While resilience may appear consensual to some, disagreements exist regarding what urban resilience should look like. Some approaches to resilience focus on infrastructure and materials, whereas other approaches are more inclusive of social and environmental concerns. WhyDAR identified different ways in which urban resilience is understood while investigating the role of science, technology, ethics and expertise in the making of resilience strategies in the Global South. It examined key ethical questions arising from disagreement about conceptions to resilience, and asked what an equitable approach to resilience would look like in the face of this disagreement.

     

    Remedying Injustice in Indigenous Climate Adaptation Planning

    Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to risks associated with climate change, yet their voices are often marginalised in climate adaptation planning. This project investigated ethics and equity aspects of the relationship between indigenous communities, climate change, and adaptation policies, bringing together both philosophical and social scientific research. It asked how adaptation policies that integrate indigenous voices into climate adaptation planning can work to reduce the unequal and inequitable distribution of climate impacts on indigenous populations. The project worked closely with collaborators at Makerere University and the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change research network, and included fieldwork with Batwa Indigenous communities in South West Uganda.

     

    Tackling Climate-related Health Risks in Urban Slums: an Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Challenge of Integrating Local and Scientific Knowledges

    Many urban populations in the Global South live in slums with poor access to sanitation and clean drinking water. Changes to the local and global climate threaten to exacerbate these health risks; flooding increases exposure to infectious diseases, while droughts threaten food supplies. To help these challenges, this project developed a new framework for integrating different knowledges in the context of climate-related health risks in slums. We combined philosophical analysis of the concept of expertise, empirical research in Zambia on traditional ecological knowledge, and medical knowledge of urban slum health.

     

    The Politics of Papua Project

    The Politics of Papua Project at the University of Warwick conducts research on Indigenous rights in Papua and provides informed political analysis to policymakers, in order to facilitate a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Papua. We collaborate with researchers around the world, including at the Papuan Cenderawasih University. We have advised UK and international parliamentarians, the Leader of the Labour Party, the FCDO, and the Indonesian Ambassador to the UK. Our research has been cited by several policymakers and politicians, including MPs.

    Since 1969, Papua has been part of Indonesia. However, a movement in Papua led by Indigenous Papuans asserts an ongoing right to self-determination. The ongoing conflict in the region, between the Indonesian military and Indigenous Papuans, is estimated to have killed at least a hundred thousand Papuans. Our aim is to provide informed and rigorous academic analysis, in collaboration with Papuan and other researchers, that can help all parties move closer to a peaceful and sustainable resolution of the conflict, and to help build institutions to support development in Papua.

    Politics of Papua WebsiteLink opens in a new window

     

    Improving Earth Systems Governance through Purpose Ecosystems

    Biodiversity is being lost at mass-extinction rates, agricultural systems are under strain and pollution of the air and sea has become an increasingly pressing threat to human health. Coupled with climate change, rising inequality and entrenched poverty, these interconnected sustainability issues are triggering social instability and conflict. Yet incremental approaches to pursuing sustainability are insufficient for delivering change at the speed and scale necessary. The aim of this project was to investigate the role and agency of purpose ecosystems in contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Earth System Governance. The project brought together researchers in Earth System Governance, equity, purpose ecosystems, sustainability and climate change. It developed a long term collaborative hub for future research and engagement based at the University of Warwick and the University of Monash.

    For more projects please see the IERG webpages

    Research Funding

    • 2022-2023, Policy Support Fund, ‘Implementing an Ethical Toolkit for a Just Transition and Climate Policy’, Principal Investigator, £45,998 (with UN FAO Global Hub on Indigenous Peoples, City of Cape Town Government, University of Cape Town, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (Peru), Open University)
    • 2023-2026, Horizon Europe/UKRI, 'Knowledge Technologies for Democracy', Co-Investigator, €2,999,261 (led by Trinity College Dublin, with partners in Italy, Poland, Finland, Spain, France and Belgium)
    • 2022-2023, GCRF-Newton Fund, ‘Leveraging Youth Research for Policy Impact: Just Recovery from Covid-19 in Informal Settlements’, Principal Investigator, £20,000 (with Slum Dwellers International and youth affiliates in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Sierra Leone)
    • 2020-2023, British Academy, 'Technological Risks in Development', Principal Investigator, £199,336 (with the University of Nairobi and CABI, Kenya, and Warwick Life Sciences)
    • 2020- 2022, UKRI/Newton Fund, The COVID Observatories: Monitoring the Interaction of Pandemics, Climate Risks, and Food Systems among the World’s most Disadvantaged Communities’, Co-Investigator, £508,586 (with the University of Leeds, FAO, and research and policy partners from Uganda, Bolivia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Namibia, Peru, South Africa, Aruba, Australia, Canada)
    • 2020-2022, AHRC, 'Inserting Ethics into Adaptation and Resilience Policy', Principal Investigator, £147,773 (with the University of Cape Town and Cape Town City government, South Africa)
    • 2020-2022, Royal Academy of Engineering, 'New Approaches to Equitable Resilience', Principal Investigator, £19,935 (with the Busara Centre for Behavioural Economics, Kenya)
    • 2020-2021, AHRC, 'Supporting Just Response and Recovery to COVID-19 in Informal Urban Settlements: Perspectives from Youth Groups in Sub-Saharan Africa', Principal Investigator, £135,689 (with Slum Dwellers International South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, University of Nottingham, and Warwick Medical School)
    • 2019-2021, ESRC, 'Urban Violence & Climate Change Network', Network Member, £150,000 (with University of Nottingham, IBA Pakistan, University of Sao Paulo Brazil, University of Khartoum Sudan, KDI Kenya, Centre for Migration Research and Development Sri Lanka, CASM Honduras, Christian Aid, International Alert, and Warwick Law)
    • 2019-2020, British Academy, ‘Tackling Climate-Related Health Risks in Urban Slums: an interdisciplinary analysis of the challenge of integrating local and scientific knowledges’, Principal Investigator, £50,000 (with University of Lusaka, Zambia, and Warwick Medical School)
    • 2019-2020, Warwick Monash Alliance Catalyst Fund, 'Improving Earth Systems Governance through “Purpose Ecosystems”', Co-Investigator, £27,268 (with University of Monash and Warwick Business School)
    • 2019-2022, ESRC, 'Challenging Inequalities: An Indo-European Perspective', Co-Investigator, £850,664 (with Warwick Economics and partners in India, France and Norway)
    • 2018-2023, Leverhulme Research Project Grant, ‘Future Politics: The Challenge of Governing Global Catastrophic Risk', Principal Investigator, £189,985
    • 2018-2020, Warwick Impact Fund, ‘Ethics in Government: Cabinet Office Collaboration’, Principal Investigator, £7,700
    • 2018-19, ESRC Impact Accelerator Account grant, ‘Urban Violence and Adaptation to Climate Change’, Principal Investigator, £19,910 (with University of Nottingham, IBA Pakistan, University of Sao Paulo Brazil, University of Khartoum Sudan, KDI Kenya, Centre for Migration Research and Development Sri Lanka, CASM Honduras, Christian Aid, International Alert, and Warwick Law)
    • 2018, British Academy, ‘Remedying Injustice in Indigenous Climate Adaptation Planning’, Principal Investigator, £49,984 (with Makerere University, Uganda, and University of Leeds)
    • 2017-2022, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, ‘Climate Change and Indigenous Food Security’, Co-Investigator, £1,220,000 (with University of Alberta and Indigenous partners in Peru, Uganda, and Canada)
    • 2016-2019, Horizon 2020, ‘Piloting Responsible Research and Innovation in Industry’, Co-Investigator, €1,708,096 (TU Delft lead)
    • 2016-2018, Global Partnership Fund, ‘Development, Inequality, and Citizenship’, Principal Investigator, £19,970 (with Cenderawasih University and Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia, and University of York)
    • 2016-2017, ESRC-AHRC-NERC, ‘Why we Disagree about Resilience’, Co-Investigator, £199,680 (with University of Cape Town, KDI Kenya, Christian Aid Philippines, and KCL)
    • 2016-2017, Warwick Impact Fund, ‘The International Politics of Self-Determination’, Principal Investigator, £6,700
    • 2015-2017, ESRC Impact Accelerator Account grant, ‘The International Politics of West Papua’, Principal Investigator, £19,897
    • 2011-15, EU FP7, 'Interoperability of Data and Procedures in Large-Scale Multinational Disaster Response Actions', Ethics Advisor, £11,000/€5,662,689
    • 2012-2014, Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, ‘Solving Moral Conflict’, Principal Investigator, £44,958
    • 2012, Hoover Fellowship, Chaire Hoover, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, €2,000
    • 2011-2013, British Academy, ‘Freedom, Equality, and Consent’, Principal Investigator, £7,458
    • 2011-2012, NERC Valuing Nature Network grant, ‘Bridging the gap between supply and demand for valuation evidence’ Network Member, £49,994
    • 2011-2012, EPSRC, 'Climate Engineering: an Interdisciplinary Assessment', Co-Investigator, £6,680
    • 2009-2010, Visiting Faculty Fellowship, Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto, £21,500
    • 2009-2010, British Academy ‘Equality, Insurance, and Choice’, Principal Investigator, £7,285
    • 2008-2012, AHRC research grant on equality and justice, 'Sharing Nature's Bounty', Principal Investigator, £210,000