Ian Scoones is a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex Institute of Development Studies. At Sussex, he is Co-Director of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability (STEPS) Centre and joint convenor of the Institute of Development Studies-hosted Future Agricultures Consortium. Scoones is an agricultural ecologist whose interdisciplinary research links the natural and social sciences and focuses on the relationships between science and technology, local knowledge and livelihoods, and the politics of policy processes in the context of international agricultural, environment, and development issues.
Over the past 25 years, Scoones has worked on pastoralism and rangeland management, soil and water conservation, biodiversity and conservation, and dryland agricultural systems, largely in eastern and southern Africa. A central theme has been a focus on citizen engagement in pro-poor research and innovation systems. Most recently, he has been working on the governance of agricultural biotechnology in India and veterinary/animal health science and policy in Africa, including projects on livestock marketing and foot-and-mouth disease in southern Africa and the international responses to avian influenza.
