Adrian Ely’s research while affiliated with University of Sussex and other places

Fifty years ago, innovation studies researchers were critical towards the pioneering ‘Limits to Growth’ analysis of world economy–environment relations. Whilst criticism took distinct forms, their arguments shared hope in the ability of technology to decouple economic growth from environmental collapse. This idea has remained prominent in policy ever since. In revisiting that debate, however, this article recalls how critics’ hope was conditional upon a radical restructuring of political and economic relations at the international level. This was a period when Third World solidarity was pushing the United Nations towards an equitable economic order for post-colonial justice—including a global redistribution of technological capabilities and self-reliance. These hopes crumbled in the face of the neoliberal counter-revolution, and today, green growth frames technology as a device for evading, not enabling, radical political and economic change. Given the alarming fact that Limits to Growth scenarios appear more prescient than ever, what lessons can post-growth approaches to technology draw from this history?

There is a significant knowledge gap regarding the pollination needs of urban farming, partly due to barriers for researchers in accessing these growing spaces. Involving growers in data collection offers a potential solution but presents other challenges in terms of data accuracy and participant retention. We developed a citizen science methodology for monitoring plant-pollinator interactions in urban food systems and evaluated the accuracy of data collected by growers by comparison to data collected by a professionally trained researcher. We also collected feedback from participants at the mid- and endpoints of the project regarding their experiences of taking part. While there was some agreement between the datasets in terms of the crops most (raspberries and squash) and least attractive (tomatoes) to insects, relying only on the dataset collected by growers themselves (citizen scientists) would lead to an overestimation of the generality of relationships between crops and pollinating insects in urban food production. Possible reasons for discrepancies between the datasets include species misidentification and non-reporting of surveys where no insects were observed by citizen scientists. Citizen scientists reported lack of time, concerns about data accuracy and too complex methods as barriers to participation. Implementation of their suggestions for improvements led to a 66% increase in participation in the following year, demonstrating the importance of maintaining a two-way dialogue between participants and project organisers. Citizen scientists also reported an increased appreciation and understanding of insect pollinations following participation, highlighting an additional benefit of involving urban growers in data collection.

How is the promise of crop genome editing viewed by scientists working with or aspiring to work with the technology, by development experts seeking to mold public perceptions and policy attitudes toward genome editing, and by donors that provide funds for genome-editing research for agricultural applications in sub-Saharan Africa? In this article, we present data from interviews with these stakeholders to shed light on their aspirations, concerns, and expectations. Previous scholarship on genome editing in relation to African agriculture has focused on the technical capabilities of genome editing techniques and surveys of current research and development activities in this field. This article contextualizes and reflects critically on expectations that genome editing can or will deliver benefits for African scientists and farmers. The interviews reveal excitement around genome editing and anticipation for what it could achieve, but also a sober realism and frustration regarding the political-economic hurdles that constrain African scientists and research institutions and the generation of public goods for African farmers and societies. These insights, we show, challenge extant narratives related to genome editing and accessibility. As such, we center and interrogate the politics of knowledge surrounding the emergence of genome editing in Africa.

Gene editing technologies are emerging as powerful tools for agricultural development, spurring both hopes and concerns in society. To understand emerging discourses and coalitions around the role of CRISPR gene editing in food and agriculture we map the main actors and themes emerging from English-speaking Twitter networks over the course of one year (2021). Scientific actors are the most active and best networked in the debate. They promote a positive image of CRISPR gene editing and actively work to strengthen their network. A smaller but equally distinct group comprises civil society actors, who voice skepticism towards the technology and sometimes questions scientists' claims, but without eliciting responses from the scientists. We conclude that emerging discourse coalitions forming around the topic of CRISPR in food and agriculture on Twitter are siloed, with limited interaction between contrasting perspectives.

Recognising the limited consideration of administrative aspects in sustainability transitions research, this article investigates the governing entities behind China's policy mix for electric vehicles (EVs), and their interactions from 2001 to 2020. Based on a social network analysis of policy documents we find that as the e-mobility transition unfolds, a complex and evolving network of governing entities has appeared in designing China's EV policy mix. Specifically, a small group of highly interactive governing entities has played a critical role in coordinating and mobilising system resources, while some new entrants have also come to the fore in response to recent socio-technical changes. Moreover, our community detection analysis distinguishes various groups of governing entities, each performing different policy functions. Based on our empirical case, we discuss factors that influence changes to administrative arrangements for policy mixes. We conclude that the deliberate acceleration of sustainability transitions calls for further research on the administration of the associated policy mixes.

Genome editing — a plant‐breeding technology that facilitates the manipulation of genetic traits within living organisms — has captured the imagination of scholars and professionals working on agricultural development in Africa. Echoing the arrival of genetically modified (GM) crops decades ago, genome editing is being heralded as a technology with the potential to revolutionize breeding based on enhanced precision, reduced cost and increased speed. This article makes two interventions. First, it identifies the discursive continuity linking genome editing and the earlier technology of genetic modification. Second, it offers a suite of recommendations regarding how lessons learned from GM crops might be integrated into future breeding programmes focused on genome editing. Ultimately, the authors argue that donors, policy makers and scientists should move beyond the genome towards systems‐level thinking by prioritizing the co‐development of technologies with farmers; using plant material that is unencumbered by intellectual property restrictions and therefore accessible to resource‐poor farmers; and acknowledging that seeds are components of complex and dynamic agroecological production systems. If these lessons are not heeded, genome‐editing projects are in danger of repeating mistakes of the past.

Comparative studies of agricultural biotechnology regulation have highlighted differences in the roles that science and politics play in decision-making. Drawing on documentary and interview evidence in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, we consider how the “regulatory cultures” that guided national responses to earlier generations of agricultural biotechnology have developed, alongside the emergence of genome editing in food crops. We find that aspects of the “product-based” regulatory approach have largely been maintained in US biosafety frameworks and that the British and German approaches have at different stages combined “process-based” and “programmatic” elements that address the scientific and sociopolitical novelty of genome editing to varying degrees. We seek to explain these patterns of stability and change by exploring how changing opportunity structures in each jurisdiction have enabled or constrained public reasoning around emerging agricultural biotechnologies. By showing how opportunity structures and regulatory cultures interact over the long-term, we provide insights that help us to interpret current and evolving dynamics in the governance of genome editing and the longer-term development of agricultural biotechnology.

Growing concerns about the impacts of food systems have led to fierce debate over the pros and cons of different modes of production. In parallel, conservationists have debated “land-sparing” versus “land-sharing” as competing rationales for a land use policy that aims to halt biodiversity loss. As a contribution to these debates, we share research conducted in the South-East of England where contrasting practices for managing land and livestock coexist in close proximity and approximate a land -sparing versus -sharing gradient. The research used an Ecosystem Services (ES) framework to explore the social, ecological and health outcomes of these practices, as understood from different perspectives. In this paper we analyse and interpret both qualitative and quantitative data generated through a participatory deliberative appraisal exercise that formed part of the research. Despite demonstrating the relevance of ES for appraising land use and management practices, we uncover a lack of sensitivity of conventional ES frameworks to the specific concerns, priorities and ambiguities of agroecological practices; an inability to encompass multiple scales and localities; limitations to incorporating site-specific considerations; and a polarising effect on the perspectives of conservationists and farmers. We conclude by offering an approach that may help to bridge between divergent perspectives and engage both on their own terms.