Based at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, the centre worked with partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
These themes included transformations and social change, uncertainty and other forms of incertitude, multiple perspectives on nature and the environment, and methodologies for research and appraisal.
[citation needed] The STEPS Centre's pathways approach[9] aims to understand the complex, non-linear interactions between social, technological and environmental systems.
The paper laid out the ingredients of the STEPS Centre's work, including linking diverse social and natural science perspectives, connecting theory, policy and practice and an engaged, interactive approach to communications.
[citation needed] Among the STEPS Centre's projects are: •Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto (40 years on from the Sussex Manifesto) • Crop, disease and innovation in Kenya - Maize and farming system dynamics in areas affected by climate change • Urbanisation in Asia - urbanisation and sustainability on the expanding peri-urban fringe of Delhi, India • Rethinking regulation - assumptions and realities of drug and seed regulation in China and Argentina • Risk, uncertainty and technology - framing and responses to risks and uncertainties in areas of rapid scientific and technological advance • Epidemics, livelihoods and politics - HIV-AIDS, SARS, 'avian flu, BSE - procedures for addressing epidemics that support rather than compromise poor people By Leach.