Global
The St Andrews Centre for Critical Sustainabilities (StACCS) builds international collaborations through research partnerships, mobility opportunities, and co‑created projects that rethink sustainability across diverse cultural, political, and ecological contexts.
We are delighted to welcome Prof. Simon Haberle, Professor of Paleoecology and Natural History at the Australian National University, who will join us in May 2026 as a Senior Global Fellow contributing to StACCS projects. This builds on visits in 2025 from Global Fellow Dr Sanna Ala-Mantila University of Helsinki and Senior Global Fellow Professor Michael Cronin Trinity College Dublin. The University’s Global Fellowship Scheme continues to bring outstanding international researchers to St Andrews, and we encourage potential future Fellows interested in collaborating with StACCS to get in touch.
Also in May 2026, Dr Ruth Ezra (Theme Lead for Creatively) will co-host (with Ella Klik, Anna-Maria Meister, and Anna Luise Schubert) an international symposium titled ‘Modes of Compression: Aesthetics, Operations, Formats’ at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, which explores the significance of compression across media, including its use as a digital operation for containment and storage – one aimed at reducing the environmental impact of data production. Later, in October 2026, Dr Edward Christie (Research and Engagement Fellow at StACCS) will co-lead (with Dr Alistair Rider and Dr Elisabetta Rattalino) an international seminar at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, titled ‘Elemental Ecologies: Art Histories of Situatedness and Drift from the Great Acceleration’.
In June 2026 we will co‑lead the summer school Rethinking Sustainability: Challenges, Approaches, and Practice at the University of Bonn (22–26 June), in partnership with Bonn’s Center for Development Research (ZEF). Designed for postgraduate researchers and early‑career scholars, the programme explores themes such as ‘Conceptualising and Interrogating Sustainability’, ‘Connecting Sustainability, Culture, and the Arts’, and ‘Rethinking Resource Use and the Economy’. Bonn is home to several UN institutions focused on sustainability, including the UN Campus – the home of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Our previous international work includes supporting a Youth and Climate Symposium at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS), as part of the UKRI Shared Island Stories project led by Prof. Karen Brown. BMHS Curator of Education Kaye Hall, and St Andrews Research Fellow Jamie Allan Brownorganised a morning Youth and Climate Symposium in the museum, followed in the afternoon by a group visit to Walkers Reserve in Barbados where the group learnt about regenerative agroforestry practices and sequestering carbon in a wetlands reserve. We have also funded projects such as Dr Michael Simpson’s Building Sustainable Solidarities, which contributes to critical interrogations of the renewable energy transition by facilitating an intercultural exchange between two communities actively opposing wind energy developments on their lands: Sámi reindeer herders in Norway and crofters in the Scottish Hebrides.
While sustainability usually benefits from close attention to local conditions, much of our research aims to develop links between our location in Scotland and global challenges and innovations. For example, in 2025 we worked with the University’s Global Office to support the UK-US Fullbright Commission debrief, which brought together US Fulbright scholars and students from across the UK to reflect on their journeys, share their research, and engage in the theme “Local Solutions to Global Challenges: The Future of Sustainability”. Further examples include co-director Dr Ian Lawson‘s work (with others at St Andrews) to connect socio-ecological research on peatlands in Scotland, Peru, and the Congo Basin. Conducting pure and applied research in partnership with overseas and international organisations such as the United Nations Environment Programme exemplifies the ambition for StACCS to be a ‘local-to-global’ research centre.
Across all our activities, we are keen to develop new funding applications, event series, and collaborative publications with partners worldwide. If you are interested in working with us, we would be very happy to hear from you.