Global Research Centre: St Andrews Centre for Critical Sustainabilities (StACCS)
StACCS is a University-wide Global Research Centre (GRC) funded for 2023-2024 that fosters collaborative, transdisciplinary research aimed at creating a more sustainable society. Drawing on insights from the humanities, arts, social sciences, and natural sciences, StACCS addresses key questions: What action is needed? Where is it needed? And who needs to act?
Co-directed by Dr Ian Lawson and Dr Louise Reid from the School of Geography and Sustainable Development. The Centre hosts, funds, and facilitates joint research, writing, exchange, outreach, and impact projects across three transdisciplinary topics: Carbon, Capital, and Community. StACCS also operates within four methodological themes that reflect current transformations in sustainability research: Creatively, Civically, Carefully, and Chronologically.
The ethos of StACCS aligns with the University of St Andrews’ commitment to “model the solutions and behaviours humanity will need to tackle the climate crisis.” The University has been a sustainability leader for nearly two decades, with milestones such as offering the first UK undergraduate degree in Sustainable Development in 2005, moving all endowment funds into sustainable investments in 2007, installing a £25M biomass boiler and district heating network, and becoming the first UK higher education institution to achieve carbon neutrality for energy in 2016.
Over the past year, StACCS has hosted numerous networking opportunities for academics across the University. In March, it welcomed a delegation from the University of Bonn to share ideas on institutional approaches to sustainability. The delegation included Pia von Falkenhausen, Advisor to the Vice-Rector for Sustainability; Leonie Kornel, Project Coordinator for Education for Sustainable Development; Juliane Dame, Researcher at the Institute of Geography; and Silke Tönsjost, Academic Coordinator at the Center for Development Research.
Pia von Falkenhausen commented on her visit: “St Andrews University’s sustainability strategy, in place since 2022, sets sustainability as the norm at the institution. We also bring this approach to our work on sustainability in Bonn. We share similar values and focus on recommendations rather than bans and mandatory requirements in how sustainability should be practiced at universities.”