Professor Philip Lowe

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Researching Environment
- Society Relations
Professor Philip Lowe Newcastle
University Director of UK Research Councils
Rural Economy and Land Use Programme
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Structure

• Scientific Challenge of Sustainable Development
• Social Science and the Environment
• The Importance of Interdisciplinary Research
  (e.g. Rural Economy and Land Use Programme)
• Examples of Upcoming Programmes

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Scientific Challenge of Sustainable
Development

• Sustainable development
• implies integration of economic, social and
  environmental objectives in public and private
  behaviour
• Unsustainable development
• fostered by fragmented thinking and blinkered
  disciplinary perspectives
• Sustainable development
• requires integrated solutions (socio-technical
  and socio-ecological adaptations)
• Demands a key role for the social sciences
  alongside the environmental sciences
  and technology

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Social Sciences and the Environment

• UK has long track record of bringing social
  sciences the human dimension - to the heart of
  debates on the environment
• ESRC Global Environmental Change Programme 1990s
• - Attitudes and behaviour
• - Business and environment
• - Policy and institutions
• - Sustainability and resource management
• Particular advances from research included
• - Fiscal policies and development of
  environmental taxes
• - Scientific approaches to environmental
  valuation
• - Insights into public understandings and
  responses to risk and uncertainty
• - Sources of social vulnerability to climate
  change

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UK Principles of Sustainable Development
Living Within Environmental Limits
Ensuring a Strong, Healthy and Just Society

Achieving a Sustainable Economy
Using Sound Science Responsibly
Promoting Good Governance
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The Environment and International Development
Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways
to Sustainability (STEPS Centre)
http//www.steps-centre.org/
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Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility
Business Relationships, Accountability,
Sustainability and Society (BRASS)

• Overarching themes
• The socio-environmental impacts of business
• Sustainable consumption and production
• Responsible management
• Examples of research
• Developing local and regional Sustainability
  Indicators
• Ecological footprinting of major events
• New decision tools for improving the
  sustainability of
• business activity
• http//www.brass.cf.ac.uk/

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Importance of
Interdisciplinary Research

• Social science increasingly called upon to
  address solutions to environmental challenges
• Calls for
• Interdisciplinarity across social and natural
  sciences
• More socially accountable science

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Interdisciplinary Research

• Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU)
• Key public challenges include
• Restoring trust in food chains
• Promoting robust rural economies
• Sustaining agriculture in a liberalised economy
• Tackling animal disease in a socially acceptable
  manner
• Mitigating threats from climate change and
  invasive species
• Reducing stress on water catchments
• http//www.relu.ac.uk/

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Interdisciplinary Research (RELU)

• Socio-Technical Innovation
• Barriers to alternative pest management
  strategies
• Political science, entomology, microbiology,
  economics
• Reframing Science
• Management of animal and plant diseases
• Economics, microbiology, veterinary medicine,
  epidemiology, plant pathology, science studies
• Spatiality of Changing Land Use
• The effects of scale in organic agriculture
• Human geography, sociology, economics,
  development studies, environmental informatics
  and modelling, hydrology, civil/water engineering

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Upcoming Programmes (LWEC)

• Living with Environmental Change
• Predicting what will happen and where impacts
  will be
• Examining the provision of ecosystem services
• Finding ways to use limited resources sustainably

http//www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/lwec/
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Living With Environmental Change (LWEC)

• Over the next ten years the programme will
• connect natural, engineering, social, medical and
  cultural researchers with policy makers,
  business, the public and other key stakeholders
• focus on the regional and local impacts of
  environmental change from seasons to decades
• provide decision-makers with best information to
  manage environmental change and protect vital
  ecosystem services

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Upcoming Programmes (ESPA)

• Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation
• Improve ecosystem management policies
• Loss of services from ecosystems reduces
  wellbeing
• International focus

http//www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/espa/
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Anglo-Chinese Collaborations

• Examples
• Sino-European Dragon Programme
• Ecosystems Services for Poverty Alleviation
  (ESPA) China Regional Analysis and Research
  Strategy
• Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) seeking
  a partnership with China

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Conclusions

• Sustainable development calls for new ways of
  doing science
• Understanding complex environment-society
  relations demands interdisciplinary research
  combining social and natural sciences
• Such interdisciplinarity promises more
  integrated, more socially accountable and more
  applicable solutions
• Global environmental change demands effective
  scientific collaboration not just across
  disciplines but across nations too