Ian Scoones is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. He has a background in agricultural ecology and his 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.  He has worked on issues such as pastoralism and rangeland management, soil and water conservation, biodiversity and environmental change, land and agrarian reform, dryland agricultural systems, crop biotechnology and animal health science policy, mostly in Africa.