Hello,

I'd like to announce the following PhD opportunity, with an application
deadline of 1st February 2008, and to start October 2008. Funding may be
available, please see the webpage given below for further details.

The successful applicant will be joining one of the most highly rated and
largest schools of Environmental Sciences in the world, with a strong social
science community of researchers working on sustainable development policy
and practice. It is an excellent opportunity to carry out some original
research into the role complementary currencies can play in the transition
to sustainable development, and how this potential can be realised.

I would be grateful for your help in forwarding the advert on to other
groups or interested people, thankyou.

Gill






Grassroots Innovations for Sustainable Development: The role and potential
of complementary currencies.

Innovation and community action are two important strands for sustainable
development, which are usually considered separately in both theory and
policy. Recent work by Seyfang and Smith (2007) bridges this divide to see
community action as a neglected, but potentially important, site of
innovative activity, and outlines a new research agenda to explore the role
and potential of 'grassroots innovation' for sustainable development. We use
the term 'grassroots innovations' to describe networks of activists and
organisations generating novel bottom-up solutions for sustainable
development; solutions that respond to the local situation and the interests
and values of the communities involved. In contrast to mainstream business
greening, grassroots initiatives operate in civil society arenas and involve
committed activists experimenting with social innovations as well as using
greener technologies. One type of grassroots innovation is complementary
currencies. Complementary currencies (CCs) such as LETS and Time Banks are
cashless trading systems, which aim to deliver social, economic and
environmental benefits, through building social capital, strengthening local
economies, and promoting import substitution. A growing global CC movement
includes many varieties of CC with different mechanisms and objectives, in
both developed and developing countries. This research will examine CC
development as a grassroots innovation, in particular its potential for
diffusing innovative social and technological practices from 'innovation
niches' into mainstream society, and will draw lessons for other types of
grassroots innovation, ultimately to inform government policy for
sustainable development. The student will work alongside a lively community
of researchers and PhD students studying community initiatives for
sustainable development, and will contribute to the International Journal of
Community Currency Research, which is hosted at UEA.


http://biobis.bio.uea.ac.uk/Resproject/show.aspx?ID=8



---------------------------------------
Dr Gill Seyfang
RCUK Academic Fellow
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK

tel: +44 (0) 1603 592956
personal: http://www.uea.ac.uk/~e175/
department: http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/

Editor, International Journal of Community Currency Research:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/ijccr/




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]