Responsible Science

SGR Newsletters are published roughly twice a year. The main articles are listed below. For details of the current issue and back issues, See our Newsletter page

Encouraging a culture of climate activism in universities

Dr Emily Heath, SGR, shares 9 tips based on her experience of leading and supporting sustainability campaigns within the UK higher education sector.

19 April 2022

Are the UK’s professional science organisations putting their money where their mouths are?

Dr Liz Kalaugher details progress on SGR’s latest investigation into the financial links between professional bodies and the fossil fuel and arms industries.

14 April 2022

SGR's Stuart Parkinson and Jan Maskell at COP26 march

A new era of activist science

Andrew Simms, SGR, looks at whether scientists can be activists too, and finds that far from being anything new, many of history’s household-name scientists have for generations been getting involved in the moral campaigns of their day.

8 April 2022

Militarising research: The dark side of Global Britain’s science agenda

The British government wants the nation to be a 'science superpower' – but, asks Dr Stuart Parkinson, SGR, is this just a smokescreen to hide the expansion of military and economic priorities within the science and technology sectors?

5 April 2022

How the UK can learn from countries climbing out of gas dependence

In light of UK energy policy failings, Andrew Simms and Freddie Daley, Rapid Transition Alliance, look at where, even before the rapid shift in EU energy policy triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, huge leaps were being made in other countries to transition away from dependence on polluting gas.

18 March 2022

Solving the UK’s energy crisis: Heat pumps and insulation for peace?

Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UK's home energy bills were shooting up, catapulting millions more into fuel poverty. But there are solutions which tackle this poverty, reduce carbon emissions, and in the longer-term insulate us from some conflicts, argues Dr Philip Webber, SGR.

15 March 2022

An Allied correspondent stands in rubble, looking at the ruins of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall.

Has our society forgotten the extreme horror of nuclear weapons?

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the risk of nuclear war has markedly increased. But, as Dr Philip Webber, SGR, points out, the threat comes from all nuclear weapons, not just those in Russian hands.

3 March 2022

From arms, planes and racing cars to ventilators: industrial conversion during the Covid-19 crisis

Dr Stuart Parkinson, SGR, assesses the UK’s crash industrial programme to scale up production of medical ventilators during the pandemic – and what lessons can be learned for conversion away from fossil fuels & arms.

10 December 2021

Are UK universities being drawn into developing autonomous weapons?

The UK government refuses to support a treaty to regulate lethal autonomous weapons systems, preferring instead to expand military R&D, including at universities. But, argues Leyla Manthorpe Rizatepe, these same universities could become a further focus of protest.

26 October 2021

Hacking the Earth: what could go wrong with geoengineering?

As we head towards the COP26 negotiations, Prof Bill McGuire, University College London, warns about the dangers of relying on geoengineering to dig us out of the climate crisis.

1 October 2021

Newsletter articles