Image by H Adams
Research on the social and economic roles of fluctuating ecosystem services in maintaining wellbeing is being carried out in Bangladesh, in collaboration with water, climate and environmental scientists.
We are generating cutting-edge research on the challenges of environmental sustainability; on the causes of degradation and exploitation of the environment; and on the processes of living with change and promoting the ability of society to maintain the environment for the benefit of all.
The theme draws on skills at the University across many social science disciplines and areas of humanities scholarship. It promotes cross-fertilisation of research, including with the natural and engineering sciences, to create new methods, robust findings, and socially relevant insights across the major challenges of environmental sustainability.
Environment and Sustainability research at Exeter builds on significant critical mass in examining:
- Behavioural change,
- adaptation vulnerability and resilience to global environmental change,
- demographic insights on environmental challenges,
- economic theory and practice of resource scarcity, and,
- societal decision-making from multiple perspectives - from applied political science through to imagined and anticipatory history.
The theme builds on investments through the Environment and Sustainability Institute and the natural science led investments in Climate Change and Sustainable Futures as well as major international networks, including the UK’s only node of the Resilience Alliance.
Exeter social scientists are leaders in their fields. They are contributing to the International Social Science Council’s World Social Science Report of 2013, and advising the UK and other governments through membership of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Social Science Advisory Group and on the UK’s National Ecosystem Assessment.
Sub themes
The Theme will appoint up to three Advanced Research Fellowships in the Humanities or Social Sciences.
Details of the process for application and the appointments can be found on our job pages. The closing date for applications is January 30 2013.
As a guide, the Theme is seeking social scientists or humanities scholars to take forward the sub-theme topics outlined in these web pages. The role of the Advanced Fellows will be:
- To promote interdisciplinary working across disciplines related to the theme through networks and grant applications.
- To potentially work promote social science and humanities interaction with the relevant natural science aspects of environment and sustainability (see for example the Climate Change and Sustainable Futures theme).
- To undertake research with collaborators and individually on research related to one or more of the sub-themes listed on these pages.
Hence we seek:
- Researchers working on demographic dimensions of environment and sustainability, including migration, mobility, ageing and risks, at individual to global scales – potential disciplinary backgrounds of demography, geography, history or economics for example.
- Researchers working on social and psychological dimensions of environmental consumption, environmental values, or the role of science and policy in promoting sustainability – potential disciplinary backgrounds include social psychology, political science, human geography.
- Researchers working on social dimensions of social-ecological systems, examining the social construction of risk, resilience and vulnerability to environmental change. This may include interactions with physical and ecological sciences – potential disciplinary backgrounds of ecological economics, social psychology and human geography.
These areas are indicative, and scholars from any background with experience of promoting interdisciplinarity across social sciences and humanities will be considered.
In applications, please include a statement of your experience and intentions of how to promote interdisciplinary activity and how your research would contribute to one or more sub-themes including a proposal for such research.
Inquiries to Theme Leader, Professor Neil Adger.
