Centre for World Environmental History

The creation of CWEH initative was a response to specialist courses and research conducted by Sussex faculty for over nine years in tropical and 'Southern' environmental history at, what was then, AFRAS and elsewhere in the University and within the Institute of Development Studies. Sussex University has a long research tradition focussed on environment and development problems in the tropics as well as a close relationship with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), located on the Sussex campus, which is Britain's leading organisation carrying out research on social and economic processes and problems. Sussex University also has a solid tradition in radical history and the history of material culture and peasant society in the Global South, exemplified in the work of Professor Ranajit Guha and the Subaltern Studies School.

The centre runs five networks:

Botanical and Meteorogical History of the Indian Ocean 1600-1900

Mines, Water and Energy network

Academia and Activism network

Historical Climatology

Climate Change and the Humanities