Tagged: ACCESS Assembly

Last year, I didn’t just feel tired – I felt burnt out. There’s a version of the postdoc journey that looks neat on paper, you do a PhD, stay in the same lab, build on familiar questions with familiar people. That hasn’t been my story. My path has been more zigzag than ladder, moving across […]

And so a fourth Access Assembly has come and gone, and a fourth Evaluation Report has been completed. Why go to all that effort to evaluate the event? To collect different types of data before and afterwards? To carefully look across that data with multiple eyes, to produce findings and come to final conclusions and […]

Dr Najma Mohamed is Head of Nature-Based Solutions at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) at the University of Cambridge. Dr Mohamed delivered a keynote at this year’s ACCESS Annual Assembly 2025 on ‘Putting People at the Heart of Place-Sensitive Just Transitions‘. We interviewed her afterwards, asking about her academic journey, […]

In 2024, feedback from the ACCESS Annual Assembly was clear, there was a lack of racial and ethnic diversity among attendees, speakers, and within the project’s wider network which needed to be addressed (see also Golding et al., 2025). The ACCESS team had already acknowledged this gap but what changed following the 2024 Assembly, was […]

Place-Sensitive Just Transitions Najma Mohamed (United Nations Environment Program – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)) delivered the keynote, followed by presentations from: Greg Marsden (Place Theme Lead, Energy Demand Research Centre & University of Leeds) Huei-Ling Lai (National Sun Yat-Sen University Taiwan) Sherilyn MacGregor (JUST (Joined-up Sustainability Transformations) Centre, University of Manchester) This session and Q&A […]

The sun shone and the conversation flowed, as 100 environmental social scientists from across academia, policy and the third sector came together for two days of thinking, connecting and network building. After a Welcome Address from ACCESS Director Patrick Devine-Wright, Day 1 began with a thematic session on ‘Place-sensitive Just Transitions’ with  Najma Mohamed of […]

Early in the planning for the Assembly, we decided we wanted to welcome in-person and online visitors. It was important for us to: Invite people from various disciplines and champion the benefits of collaboration and co-production. Be inclusive and offer equally enriching experiences and networking opportunities to those in the room and those sitting at […]