j.thompson@ids.ac.uk

John Thompson has worked on sustainability power and policy issues in coupled human-environment systems over three decades in both developing and industrialised countries. A resource geographer with a B.Sc. from Penn State University and M.A. and Ph.D. from Clark University USA he joined the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex UK in 2006 as a Senior Research Fellow in Knowledge Technology and Society. As a member of the ESRC-funded STEPS Centre new interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement hub which links environmental sustainability and technology change with poverty reduction and social justice he co-convenes its Food and Agriculture Domain and leads research on Environmental Change and Maize Innovation Systems in Kenya. Dr. Thompson also serves as Joint Coordinator of the DFID-funded Future Agricultures Consortium a partnership between African and UK research institutions which undertakes collaborative research and seeks to foster critical debate and policy dialogue on the future of agriculture in Africa. He also co-directs the Consortium%u2019s research efforts on Science Technology and Innovation and serves as Principal Investigator on new research projects on the %u2018Political Economy of Cereal Seed Systems in Africa%u2019 and %u2018Governing the African Green Revolution%u2019. Dr Thompson%u2019s research interests include a focus on the dynamics of sustainability in complex diverse and risk-prone environments the political ecology of socio-ecological transformations and the governance of science technology and innovation particularly in agriculture.