- Speaker
- Date
- Tuesday 5 Oct 2021, 16:00 - 17:30
- Type
- Seminar
- Spoken Language
- English
- Room
- Online via Zoom
- Location
- International Institute of Social Studies
- Ticket information
Please contact Jessica Pernozzoli at pernozzoli@iss.nl if you would like to attend this seminar.
The solutions to environmental challenges are to be found in the intersection of developmental sectors and academic disciplines. So argues Dr Mathew Kurian in this Development Research Seminar.
Dr Kurian will discuss an important lesson emerging from Boundary Science (Elsevier, 2021), namely that most solutions to environmental challenges such as deforestation, climate change or soil erosion are to be found at the intersection of developmental sectors (agriculture, rural development, public health) and academic disciplines (covering social and physical sciences).
By drawing on the experience of research on the water-energy-food nexus, the seminar will discuss five case studies to highlight the importance of studying institutional trajectories and the opportunities such a project presents for development studies in general and for disciplines such as economics, public administration, data science, political science and sociology in particular.
About the speaker
Mathew Kurian is consortium lead for the Belmont Forum project on cyber-enabled disaster resilience involving partners at Penn State University, Cranfield University, University of Sao Paulo, UNHABITAT, Geneva, Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Tanzania, Makelle University, Ethiopia and Indian Institute of Science, Roorkee.
He previously led the establishment of the Capacity Development and Governance Unit at United Nations University (UNU) in Dresden, Germany besides holding staff positions at The World Bank and the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (IWMI-CGIAR).
He has also held faculty positions at University College London (UCL) and UNESCO-IHE, Delft. Mathew defended his PhD at ISS in 2003. He is a member of the ISS PhD Alumni Association Task Force.