Influencing policy and changing opinion

Engaging with policy-makers

One of the main aims of the STEPS Centre is to ensure that environmental sustainability and making science and technology work for poor people become principal concerns for the people that make policy.

To do this we want to engage with local, national and international government, and governmental agencies to advance policy debate through collaborative work that enhances citizen engagement and changes opinion.

This is a time of major opportunity to address these challenges. International policy interest and investment in issues of science, technology, environment and development is running high, boosted by new sources of private and philanthropic funding.

In this era of unprecedented pace and scale of social, environmental and technological change we want to ensure that environmental sustainability and poor people’s health and livelihoods are at the top of the policy agenda.

Policy Missing Link

At the moment there is a missing link in policy-making. Conventional policy approaches to long-term shifts in climate, the global spread of diseases such as BSE, HIV/AIDS or avian ‘flu, or innovation in biotechnologies, often treat environmental, technological and socio-political change separately.

These approaches do not take in to account the dynamism of contemporary systems, diversity of local conditions and range of values. Consequently, they can lead to policy prescriptions that can prove environmentally, politically infeasible or have negative impacts on the poor.

For instance, will the globally-fincnaced roll-out of new antiretroviral drugs solve HIV-related health problems, or will it interact with disease ecologies, unregulated markets and social change to provoke new and devastating resistances? Or will new biotechnologies solve the problems of hunger and land degradation amidst climate change-induced drought, or will they provoke new uncertainties and missed opportunities to build n farmers’ own soil and crop adaptations?

A new approach

So we are developing a new theoretical approaches and practical actions to understanding the interactions, the pathways, between social, technological and environmental dynamics in diverse local conditions to create more sustainable, socially just and favourable conditions for the poor.

The STEPS Centre is developing a new set of institutional designs, decision-making procedures, appraisal methods and analytical tools which enhance citizen engagement and environmental sustainability in uncertain environments. And we are mapping out a new set of interdisciplinary concepts and methodologies for a contemporary environment and development agenda.

How can we help policy-makers?

To encourage policy-makers interact with our work, we seek to identify and communicate issues and ideas that can help achieve change. We offer a range of services to help make our research as useful as possible for policy-makers.

Policy Briefing

Our Policy Briefings offer an accessible and clear snap-shot of the STEPS Centre’s major research findings placed in a contemporary policy context. The briefings are an easily digestible read aimed specifically at policy-makers and are free.

If you wish to subscribe to the STEPS Centre Briefing service, please send an email to: lyris@lyris.ids.ac.uk  with the following line in the subject box:

subscribe steps-briefing YourFirstName YourLastName
e.g.   subscribe steps-briefing Emily Smith

Consultation

The STEPS Centre wants to contribute to advancing policy debate around environmental sustainability and making science and technology work for the poor. We would welcome the chance to contribute to policy papers and are happy to give face-to-face background briefings. If you are a policy-maker and are interested in hearing more about STEPS, please get in touch by emailing us at steps-centre@ids.ac.uk

Media Briefing

Our daily Media Briefing keeps you bang up-to-date with STEPS-related news, views and features from the UK quality press and selected global sources delivered direct to your in-box. Areas covered include environment, science and technology, agriculture, water, health and international development.

If you wish to subscribe to the STEPS Centre Media Briefing service, please send an email to: lyris@lyris.ids.ac.uk  with the following line in the subject box:

subscribe steps-media YourFirstName YourLastName
e.g.   subscribe steps-media Emily Smith

Blog

For a quick and easy way to stay connected with the STEPS debate, log on to our blog, The Crossing. Our directors and members regularly write bite-sized contributions, with up-to-date insight into their work, insights and ideas and how they connects to current, real-world issues.

Our members blog from conferences around the world, picking up on the most interesting STEPS-related issues, and from STEPS Seminars and other events, keeping you informed even if you can’t make it to the meeting in person.

The blog’s hyperlinks are a great way to explore related work around STEPS issues and there is, of course, the opportunity to join the debate. http://stepscentre-thecrossing.blogspot.com/

STEPS Impact on Policy

As the Centre develops we hope to advance policy debates around promoting environmental sustainability and making science and technology work for the poor.

We have already significant contributions to policy debates have already been made, for example through debates on alternative agricultural technology strategies through the STEPS blog; a submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry on water and sanitation for development, and contribution to strategic thinking on interdisciplinarity by the African Academies of Science, in a panel hosted by the Royal Society.

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