Environmental Social Science at Kent is a vibrant and multi-disciplinary programme which seeks to understand and seek solutions to the environmental issues facing our global society.

The Environmental Social Science programmes are interdepartmental and benefit from expertise found across the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Social science perspectives are crucial to understanding and solving environmental problems. Human behaviour produces many elements of the ‘natural’ environment, from landscapes to floods and famines. Local and national policies and international agreements regulate the environmental practices of corporations, governments and households. The social sciences have a great deal to contribute to understanding what have become defined as environmental issues, and what measures can most effectively tackle them.

The multidisciplinary Environmental Social Science programmes draw on the contributions of Anthropology, Conservation and Ecology, Law, Social Policy and Sociology. In each of these disciplines, Kent is very active in research. The programmes therefore build upon a strong base.

Think Kent video series

Drawing on her 2012 book ‘The Cosmopolitanization of Science’, Dr Joy Zhang, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent, uses China’s experience in stem cell research as an example to demonstrate how actors from the Global South can assume a more contributory role in steering global scientific norms.