On this page we share updates about SGAIN, and various events attended by our team members.

For updates from previous years: 2024

International Studies Association (ISA) 2025

2-5 March 2025

We are pleased to share that earlier this month, SGAIN was represented at the 66th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA) in Chicago by several team members.

Principal Investigator Yixian Sun participated in several roundtable discussions to share insights on the construction and use of databases in global environmental governance and politics research, climate leadership in Chinese cities and also ways to enhance diversity and inclusion at ISA. Yixian Sun and Yitong Ye presented their paper 'Governing sustainable infrastructure through a public-private initiative', which investigates how the FAST-Infra Label emerged through coordinated interactions among diverse public and private actors. Dr Hina Aslam delivered a presentation on her work about the growing complexity and challenges arising from diverse frameworks for embedded emissions accounting in the Iron steel sector, and Dr Randy W Nandyatama presented his paper on the dynamics of civil society organisations within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) experiencing increased autocratisation practices.

We also celebrated the presentation of the 2025 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Environmental Studies Section to SGAIN advisory board member Prof Ben Cashore. This award was a well-earned recognition of his decades of groundbreaking scholarship to environmental policy and governance research, including the creation of the term "non-state market driven" (NMSD) global governance and researching climate change as a “super wicked problem”. Congratulations Ben!

All SGAIN researchers enjoyed the conference and got useful feedback on their work. Our team also had a small gathering in Chicago. We look forward to sharing more work at the next year’s ISA!

Researching Global China Conference

25-25 February 2025

In late February, the REDEFINE project hosted the ‘Researching Global China Conference – Innovation and Challenges’, bringing together key Global China scholar to discuss methodological research in the field.

We are pleased to share that several SGAIN researchers attended the conference, representing the project and presenting their ongoing work in building datasets to study Global China. Yitong Ye and Ciara O’Brien shared our first draft of the China Global Environmental Leadership Database, including some of our preliminary results, and Yuen Gu presented her research on China’s South-South Climate Cooperation Database.

We are grateful to the organisers at REDEFINE for this opportunity.

Read more about the conference from our team member Yuen: here

Dr Hapsari Visits Bath

27 January 2025

This week, Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Dr Maharani Hapsari, visited the University of Bath. Dr Hapsari joined them for their fortnightly meeting for project updates, then gave a talk as part of the ESG Seminar series on the rise of environmental justice movements in Indonesia. This talk covered how the case of palm oil justice movements in Indonesia reveals that struggle is not neutral from contestation, arising within the collective political groups seeking to transform the existing power structure towards a more desirable and just alternative order. Instead, such contestation is a product of contending discourse articulated by activities within the movement, which shapes their identity, approach and strategy in promoting justice as part of the collective action.

After the seminar, Dr Hapsari discussed future collaboration and research in Indonesia with SGAIN.

Professor Chong Chen Visits Bath

13 January 2025

In early January 2025, Professor Chong Chen, Associate Professor of International Relations at Tsinghua University visited the Bath team, joining them for their meeting to discuss project development and milestones. Prof Chen presented his own research, including the effects of state leader visits, to the team, prompting fruitful discussion. This visit also facilitated dialogue for the opportunity of future partnership and collaboration with SGAIN.