Inaugural ‘Careful Research’ Spring School
It was a pleasure to host the first of what we hope will be many Spring Schools, working with early career researchers to explore how we can undertake transformative sustainability research in line with our values.
The “Critical Sustainability Research: Careful, Participatory, and Emancipatory Research Methods” Spring School was co-developed by StACCS and colleagues at the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn: Dr Silke Tönsjost, PD Dr Eva Youkhana, and Dr Alejandro Mora Motta. Great thanks to Fiona Hill, Harry Watkins, Lydia Cole and Dan Clayton for their contributions, and to Marie MacRae, Susan Hopkin and Karen Primrose for behind-the-scenes support.
We had a hugely enjoyable few days together, sharing experiences, reading some of the classic literature, sharing some of our favourite books and papers, and working together to design the foundations for a training workshop to help to spread the message. It was great to spend time with colleagues with different disciplinary backgrounds and think about how ‘Careful’ research is being interpreted in different fields. There’s a huge variety of interpretations, and a lot of potential to share good practice and develop new ways of working.
We also made the most of the unseasonally fine weather (with just enough haar to lend a bit of interest!) to get out-and-about to the Botanic Gardens and the Eden Campus, thinking about how to put theory into practice.
We’re already beginning to plan next year’s event, which will take place in Bonn w/c 8 June 2026. Looking forward to it already…!