(1) South Asia Sustainability Hub & Knowledge Network (SASH&KN)
SASH&KN as a South Asia level hub is visualized just as there are Latin American and an Africa hub along with, the STEPS Centre playing the role of a nodal organization for this international programme of research on sustainability studies. The TRC Programme on Sustainability Studies, through a collaborative creative process, moves towards further development of the field as an academic area of trans-disciplinary knowledge and policy relevance. The particular lens of the Sustainability Hub for South Asia would be that of issues relevant to the livelihoods and health of informal sector workers and the marginalized majority in the region. Pathways to sustainability will be charted through local, national, regional and global studies on people's responses to the ecosystem, livelihood and health challenges, diverse science and technology possibilities, regulatory and governance mechanisms as well as economic and political processes.
Activities of the trans-disciplinary programme on sustainable studies and the hub can be classified into three broad missions: education, research and outreach. Creating a knowledge repository as a resource on sustainability, and developing an enlarging network of collaborative institutions, is envisaged so that the Hub also acts as a source for policy intervention and response in public discourse.
(2) Urbanization and Sustainability in the Era of Globalization: Emerging Scenarios in South-West National Capital Region (NCR) [under the UPE II Fund, MHRD, Government of India]
This research study fulfils following objectives:
* This study will examine the past and present regulatory framework of sustainable urbanization. It will identify the opportunities and challenges of urban expansion for diverse sections of society.
* This study will investigate into the multiple trajectories of contemporary urbanization in the context of the expanding informalisation of labor processes. It will identify the implications of these processes for occupational and social structures.
* This study will examine the experience of urbanization for the health and wellbeing of diverse sections in the new and expanding cities as well as their hinterland. It will project from the past to futuristic, public policy and sustainable scenarios for determinants of population health and healthcare.
* This study will focus on how various kinds of knowledge (global and local) and practitioners (academics, planners, activists etc.) contribute in shaping urban processes, and will develop future scenarios and pathways of sustainable urbanization for the selected area of NCR.
(3) TRCSS Knowledge Repository
The proposed knowledge repository aims not only at sharing files, digital objects or remain as a static archive of published material but intends to be dynamic and interactive in nature. It will provide a common platform and centralized access to all researchers and students of sustainability studies. While allowing collaboration among facilitators, policy makers and researchers, it will ensure administrators to set permissions and controls for access to content and protect the integrity and intellectual property rights of content owners and creators. This will facilitate dynamic online communities with search and navigation option of relevant information within learning platforms as a tool for just-in-time learning.
The proposed knowledge repository will house a wide variety of digital courseware, and content curated from multiple sources that can be shared and commented upon with password authentication. The following facilities are being planned for the website hosted at JNU.
1. Curricular Material on Sustainability Studies; 2. Working papers; 3. Discussion forum, webinars; 4. Events: past and future; 5. Blog; 6. Comments; 7. Articles, reviews, books; 8. Plan, proposals, surveys, conference proceedings, News.
Implementation:
Creation of 'Knowledge Repository' proposes to begin with an extensive review of the historical and contemporary literature on sustainability in India followed by its thematic categorization, annotation and identification of contemporary relevance in the light of ongoing international discourse on sustainability studies. Besides making a contribution to the development of an understanding about the state-of-art in the field of sustainability studies in India, this exercise will further feed into the process of the development of research agenda for sustainability hub and preparation of curricular material of sustainability studies in India at JNU. The components of curricular material will include textual, audio-visual and demonstrative tools & techniques of academic learning, knowledge exchange and research methodology.
In the first phase of this exercise (till March 2016), TRCSS will try to identify academics and practitioners contributing to the fields of sustainability research, education and advocacy in India. A team of the highly competent faculty members and senior researchers assisted by the Research Assistants will be deployed in this task. The literature review exercise on sustainability studies in Indian context will develop a list and collection of literature of the academics and their respective research students' work on sustainability studies. The work of non-academics (practitioners, policy makers, planners, thinkers and advocates of sustainability) will also be collected in this process. In sum, a total of around 50 prominent academics and non-academics will be identified with a collection of their relevant work. Additionally, a bibliography of around 300 to 500 most significant documents will also be prepared. Based on the exercise as mentioned above, a thematic categorization of the collected literature will be done to develop the future research and education agenda of the sustainability hub.
(4) Public Lecture and Film Series on Sustainability Studies
In pursuance of TRCSS missions, one of the activities being initiated in 2015-16 is a series of public lectures and panel discussions alternating with a film-cum-discussion. The ?Public Lecture/Panel Discussion and Film Screening-cum-discussion Series on Sustainability Studies? invites scholars from other institutions as well as from JNU. Scholars from other countries are also invited when they are in India, especially from the STEPS Centre, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex as well as from the Latin American and African Sustainability Hubs of the STEPS Centre.
In this first year, TRCSS proposes to invite lectures that generate ideas for the substantive content, theoretical and methodological orientation to the conception of Sustainability Studies from diverse perspectives.
Related Ongoing/Completed Projects With STEPS Centre, UK
Project Title | Collaborating Centre (s) of JNU | International Collaborator | Project Director/PI/Co-PI at JNU | Project Period | |
1. | Pathways for Environmental Health in Transitional Spaces: Moving between Formality and Informality | CSSP/SSS CSMCH/SSS CSRD/SSS |
STEPS Centre, University of Sussex, UK | Pranav N Desai (CSSP), Ritu Priya (CSMCH), Milap Punia (CSRD) |
Three years |
2. | Grassroots Innovation in Historical and Comparative Perspective |
CSSP/SSS
|
STEPS Centre, University of Sussex, UK | Professor Dinesh Abrol (CSSP), Pranav N. Desai (CSSP) |
Three years |
3. | Risks and Responses to Urban Futures: integrating peri-urban/urban synergies into urban development planning for enhanced ecosystem service benefits | CSSP/SSS CSMCH/SSS CSRD/SSS |
SPRU, IDS, University of Sussex, UK | Pranav N. Desai (CSSP), Ritu Priya (CSMCH), Ramila Bisht (CSMCH) Milap Punia (CSRD) |
Two years |