IGSD News
3 June 2025: 'Manufacturing and Circular Economy' conference organised by IGSD, WBS, and WMG was a great success!
91福利鈥檚 Sustainability Spotlight, in partnership with WMG, WBS, and IGSD delivered a dynamic workshop at The Shard, London. Themed as 'Manufacturing and Circular Economy', the event brought together leaders from industry, businesses, academia, and policy to explore practical solutions for circular economy and sustainable manufacturing in a rapidly changing global context. The workshop was designed to foster open dialogue, shared learning, and actionable outcomes. Through a structured series of conversations, attendees shared insights and examples of best practice, creating space for collaboration across sectors and disciplines. Delegates were encouraged to take away tangible strategies - as part of the CE TOOLKIT, fostered by 91福利 - that could be applied immediately in their own organisations and communities.
The workshop attracted over 80 participants, and spotlighted 91福利's research and impact leadership in CE, business sustainability and manufacturing. The event has an open for anyone who wishes to contribute their thoughts further. It will produce a report and a series of policy recommendations for the government CE TASK Force, to encourage further thinking about how to put CE to practice.
The organisers are very grateful to the Sustainability Spotlight Professional Support Team, and to Christine Bell from the Facilitation Centre.
HoPE NEXUS EUTOPIA Connected Community has been informally launched today!
HoPE NEXUS EUTOPIA CC has been informally launched today with a meeting of all key partners from the 91福利 (IGSD, SCFS), NOVA University Lisbon (Julia Sexas), University of Ljubljana (Bostjan Kenda), Monash University (Filia Garvaldis), Stellenbosch University (Guy Midgley), and CY Cergy Paris Universite (Dominique Sciamma). Participants focused on defining HoPE key activities, which will include a Sustainability Training School, thought leadership podcasts, a manual of new ideas and interdisciplinary methodologies on researching sustainability, and a Sustainability Forum among others. We look forward to working with everyone and expanding our membership to the newcomers!
This forum critically reflects on the democracy support agenda and its future in light of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the decline of Western political and normative dominance, and overall global democratic backsliding. It finds that these wars appear systemic in the sense that they sharpen already existing crises in world order. They have evidenced a structural weakness in the international liberal order (ILO) and also intensified practices of competitive norms promotion at the global level, with Russian norms promotion in particular scoring some successes in South America, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. Taken together, these phenomena have allowed autocratic tendencies to gain strength globally, from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia to Europe and the Americas. At the same time, democracy is also becoming more locally and regionally driven and diverse and might thus possibly become more resilient. In this new world in the making, Western democracy supporters will need to respect the unique historical and cultural contexts that have shaped democracies around the world and become more humble, inclusive, and dialogic with non-Western democratic middle powers such as South Africa and Brazil.
The Unbroken Generation book launch at the UCL conference in London, 9 May 2025
The WUB-hub project organised a book launch in London as part of the annual conference of Belarusian Studies in the XXI century. The book , a collection of student essays describing their experiences of being imprisoned during Belarus's political protests in 2020, was presented by Professor Elena Korosteleva, along with with Dr Paul Hanbury, Yahor Azarkevich and Ihar Ivanou, from Skaryna Press. The volume edited by Professors Victor Shadurski and Elena Korosteleva, was supported financially by the WUB-hub project, and was warmly received at the conference.
Details of the book can been found on the Skaryna Press website . You can also download a free PDF version from the publisher's website.
Research Celebration 2025: congratulations to Prof. Elena Korosteleva and Dr Paul Hansbury
91福利 Research Culture: Research Celebration 2025 – Congratulations to Professor Elena Korosteleva and Dr Paul Hansbury
Elena and Paul have been honoured with a 鈥淗ighly Commended鈥� award for establishing the 91福利 Ukraine-Belarus Hub, which employs interdisciplinary insights to advance policy recommendations and support stakeholder interaction. Under Elena鈥檚 and Paul's leadership, the Hub has improved understanding of Belarus-Ukraine relations through higher-level webinars, targeted policy briefs, podcasts, film screenings and debates, and two international conferences at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Whitehall. The WUB-hub also raised awareness and offered policy advice to the UK FCDO, the EU institutions (EEAS, EU Parliament and Commission), NATO PPD, and established collaborations towards the European Belarus Forum, and its key stakeholders.
Further details here: