Defining environmental social sciences for interdisciplinary research, policy and practice

Birgitta Gatersleben, George W. Warren, Valentine Seymour, Beth F.T. Brockett, Isabelle Cardinal, Ian Christie, Theofanis Exadaktylos, Nigel Gilbert, Amelia Hadfield, Christopher R. Jones, Melissa Marselle, Harry Marshall, Clive Mitchell, Liz O’Brien, Benjamin Sovacool, Gerardo A. Torres Contreras, Susan Williams, Caryl Williams and Anna Lorentzon
Environmental Science & Policy | October 2026

Summary

Environmental issues are ultimately social issues: they are shaped by people, communities, institutions and political systems, and must be understood and addressed through these social dimensions. Yet the value of the environmental social sciences (ESS) is not always well understood in interdisciplinary research, policy and practice.

A five-year UK programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council set out to champion ESS and quickly identified the need for a shared understanding of what the field is, who works in it, and how its insights can be used. This is challenging because of disciplinary boundaries, differing views of what constitutes good science, and differences between academic and non-academic perspectives.

The project brought together environmental social scientists from academic and non-academic fields to develop a concise, comprehensive description of ESS, drawing on existing research and group discussions. The paper defines ESS as the systematic study of the relationships between people, the social environment and the non-human natural environment. It identifies three complementary types of knowledge: instrumental, diagnostic and evaluative, and critical and innovative.

Examples and case studies show how these different forms of knowledge can contribute at different stages of research and practice. The authors argue that a shared understanding of ESS is important for demonstrating its value and showing how it can help us understand and address complex people-environment challenges.

Further Reading