Dr Les Levidow

Senior Research Fellow

les.levidow@open.ac.uk

Biography

Professional biography

Senior Research Fellow, Open University (based there since 1989)

B.A., Biology, University of Rochester, NY, 1972.
M.A., Biology, Temple University, Philadelphia, 1974.
PhD, Technology Policy, The Open University, 1995.

Science as Culture, Co-Editor since its inception in 1987

Research interests

Participatory Action Research (PAR) with civil society groups which thereby strengthen their collective capacities as change agents; projects have had contexts in Britain, the EU and Latin America. Controversial sociotechnical innovations (e.g. agri-biotech, biofuels and thermal waste treatment), as well as alternatives to agri-industrial systems, especially agroecological practices linked with food localisation, short food-supply chains, solidarity economy and food sovereignty. These topics have provided case studies for several policy-relevant issues: sustainability, socio-ecological resilience, socio-environmental technologies, low-carbon economy, innovation, governance, public participation, regulatory science, the precautionary principle, waste hierarchy and European integration.

Project funds have come from the European Commission, the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the OU’s Open Societal Challenges (OSC) programme.

Publications in reverse chronological order: http://www.open.ac.uk/people/ll5#tab2
Some publications and films from each project can be found below.

RECENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

Community-led policy innovation: Local Authority policy change towards climate-resilient, socially just agri-food systems
Funded by the OU’s Open Societal Challenges programme, pilot study through March 2024.
Partnership includes the Cobra Collective and food-growing advocacy groups in five Boroughs along the Thames Corridor. Short-term aims include:

To increase the resources for local food-growing and short-supply chain distribution, especially by and for lower-income groups, as tangible step towards the wider aim to achieve a climate-resilient, socially just agri-food system.
To engage Local Authorities by clarifying and requesting relevant support measures, especially through transversal policies that can overcome the commonly fragmented remits across administrative units and officers’ roles.
To articulate community-driven policy innovation at Local Authority level, aiming to enhance support measures and collective capacities that can help groups to achieve the first aim.
To build a local food culture through storytelling that expresses group aspirations, imaginations and commitments around local food growing, processing and distribution.

Final report:
Community-led Policy Innovation for Local Food-Growing: Action Research methods and their results, August 2024

Blogs
Les Levidow, Community-led Policy Innovation for Local Food-Growing: summary results with webinar link, 2023
Richard Galpin and Les Levidow, Learning from a networked approach in Southwark, May 2024,
Andrea Berardi, Achieving the ‘Right to Grow’: a case study from Runnymede Borough Council, July 2024,

Videos
Spelthorne’s Community-Led Climate Initiative, June 2023, https://vimeo.com/838584247
Incredible Edible Spelthorne, 2024, https://vimeo.com/935865687?share=copy
Incredible Edible Reading, 2024, https://vimeo.com/936181470?share=copy
Community Food Growing and Rewilding Projects in Runnymede, 2024, https://vimeo.com/930322591?share=copy
Incredible Edible Lambeth: St Martin’s Estate garden building community, 2024, https://vimeo.com/930682719?share=copy

Digital storytelling about group food-growing
Short title of project: ‘Local food-growing initiatives respond to the Covid-19 crisis: enhancing well-being, building community for better futures’
Funded by the UKRI-AHRC Covid-19 Rapid Response Programme, during January 2021 – June 2022.The project had three partners: Sustain Alliance for Better Food & Farming; Reading International Solidarity Centre, (RISC), which runs Food for Families (F4F); and the Cobra Collective, which facilitated digital storytelling about people’s experiences in community food-growing (CFG). The project was structured as a course in visual storytelling, using methods of Participatory Action Research (PAR). It has aimed to improve social inclusion, enhance well-being and build community bonds, while also strengthening third-sector capacities for such benefits.
Short overview of course results and participants’ video stories.
Free online course for making your own video story.
Publications
Visual Storytelling about Community Food Growing: Participatory Action Research Methods, Processes, and Wider Implications, https://cobracollective.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Visual-Storytelling-about-Community-Food-Growing_Handbook_Low-Res.pdf
Levidow, L, Berardi, A. & Jung, J. 2023. How does community food growing build community bonds? Insights from grassroots visual storytelling, Local Environment 29(1): 1-20, https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2023.2248612

Our films on CFG initiatives:
‘Calthorpe Community Garden: an oasis building community in central London’,
https://vimeo.com/751171844 Click on the CC icon to obtain the subtitles.
‘Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden: inter-generational learning builds community’,
https://vimeo.com/754435021
‘Lavender Place Community Gardens: the evolution of an urban oasis’
https://vimeo.com/showcase/6851866/video/7766940

AgroEcos: nickname of Research partnership for an agroecology-based solidarity economy in Bolivia and Brazil
Funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), 2020-2021.
Research teams: Open University, UK; Comunidad de Estudios Jaina, Bolivia; Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil.
The project carried out Participatory Action Research (PAR) with initiatives building capacities for agroecological innovation in Bolivia and Brazil. It aimed to identify and strengthen collective capacities for an agroecology-based solidarity economy.
Tri-lingual website at https://projetoagroecos.wixsite.com/meusite

Journal papers
Cabral, L., Levidow, L. e Schmitt, C.J. 2021. Alargamento de espaço para o diálogo de políticas Sul-Sul: Aprender com as iniciativas lideradas pela sociedade civil , Cadernos IESE, pp.271-300, Maputo: Moçambique: Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos (IESE).
Levidow, L., Sansolo, D.G., Schiavinatto, M. 2021. Agroecological practices as territorial development: an analytical schema from Brazilian agroforestry case studies, Journal of Peasant Studies 48(4): 827-852, https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2019.1683003
Levidow, L., Sansolo, D.G., Schiavinatto, M. 2021. Agroecological innovation constructing socionatural order: two case studies in Brazil , Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society 4(1): 1-29.
Levidow, L., Sansolo, D.G., Schiavinatto, M. 2022. EcoSol-agroecology networks respond to the Covid-19 crisis in Brazil’s Baixada Santista region, Journal of Peasant Studies, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2022.2096447
Levidow, L., Sansolo, D.G., Schiavinatto, M., Vacaflores, C. 2022. EcoSol-agroecología construyen circuitos cortos solidarios por proximidades societales: experiencias en Brasil y Bolivia, A Revista das ITCPs 2(1): 52-69 (Incubadoras Tecnológicas de Cooperativas Populares), https://revistas.ufpel.edu.br/index.php/itcps/article/view/4682
Levidow, L., Sansolo, D.G., Schiavinatto, M. 2023. Territorializing local food systems for an agroecological transition in Latin America, Land 12(8): 1577; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12081577
Levidow, L. 2023 (forthcoming). Traditional communities mobilising musical and agri-food cultures for a decolonial resistance-conservation in the Bocaina, Brazil, MUSICultures no.50, https://oro.open.ac.uk/84417/
Levidow, L., Sansolo, D.G., Schiavinatto, M. 2023. Territorializing local food systems for an agroecological transition in Latin America, Land 12(8): 1577; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12081577, Special Issue on ‘Local Initiatives of Agroecological Transition for the Territorialization of Food Systems

Films from two case studies with English language subtitles
“Baixada Santista, Brasil: redes solidarias agroecológicos” (filme, 35’), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcyIcrdenmM&t=15s
“Agroecologia, Pesca e Economia Solidária na Bocaina em tempos de Covid-19” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjgOuo9Nfg4

Project reports, including transversal analysis and case studies (in English, Spanish or Portuguese)

Bulletin articles or blogs
AgroEcos Boletim no.2 (trilingual), novembro 2021.
Levidow, L. 2020. ‘Return to normal’ from the COVID-19 crisis? on AgroEcos website.
Levidow, L., Sansolo, D.G., Schiavinatto, M. 2021. Agroecology’s societal benefits depend on solidaristic relationships: some experiences from Brazil, Agroecology Europe, October 2021 Month of Agroecology, https://www.agroecology-europe.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Month-of-Agroecology-Article-on-Social-Values-Les-Levidow-.pdf
Levidow, L. 2021. Socio-environmental justice: traditional communities renewing musical cultures in the Bocaina, Brazil, Society for Ethnomusicology newsletter 55(2), http://oro.open.ac.uk/79446, or https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350188785_
Sansolo, D., Levidow, L., Gross, G.V. 2021. Participatory Action Research during the Covid-19 pandemic: methodological aspects, http://www.open.ac.uk/ikd/blog/participatory-action-research-during-covid-19-pandemic-methodological-aspects

Food sovereignty through agroecology in South America: Interdisciplinary methods for participatory action research (PAR)
Funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) networking grants during 2021-2022.
Overseas Host Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil.
Main activity was a continent-wide workshop on Investigación Acción Participativa (IAP or PAR in English) on the project’s theme. Some researchers did site visits beforehand in order to strengthen their presentations at the workshop. The project exchanged researchers’ experiences and improved methods for IAP, in turn contributing to civil society agendas for food sovereignty through agroecology.
Convocatoria (CfP) for the September 2022 workshop.
Informe final (final report), ‘Soberanía Alimentaria a través de la Agroecología por la IAP: Asuntos y preguntas para aclararse’, Enero 2023.

Green New Deal agendas
Since 2019 the Green New Deal has become a central concept of various political alliances, both national and local, especially in the US and UK. The concept has been appropriated for divergent political agendas, expressing conflicts about what transition process could reconcile decarbonisation, environmental sustainability and livelihoods. The tensions are analysed in these articles; the first two are on labour movement blog pages.
Levidow, L. 2022. Green New Deals: what shapes Green and Deal?, Capitalism Nature Socialism (CNS) 33(3): 76-97.
Levidow, L. 2022. Glasgow’s retrofit programme: rival agendas. Edinburgh: ScotE3 (Employment, Energy and Environment),
Levidow, L. 2022. Labour movement agendas in conflict over decarbonisation pathways. London: Greener Jobs Alliance (GJA).

EARLIER RESEARCH PROJECTS (before 2015)

‘Increasing energy yield from the integration of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis’, funded by the EPSRC Supergen Bioenergy programme, 2013-16, coordinated by Aston University.
Project description Publications include:
Levidow, L., and Upham, P. 2017. Socio-technical change linking expectations and representations: Innovating thermal treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW), Science and Public Policy 44(2): 211-224, http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/105465/1/Levidow%20Upham%20SPP%20gasification.pdf
Levidow, L. and Raman, S. 2019. Metamorphosing waste as a resource: scaling waste management by ecomodernist means, Geoforum 98: 108–122, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.10.020, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718518303233
Levidow, L. and Raman, S. 2020. Sociotechnical imaginaries of low-carbon waste-energy futures: UK techno-market fixes displacing public accountability, Social Studies of Science, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0306312720905084

‘Ecowater: Meso-level eco-efficiency indicators to assess technologies and their uptake in water use sectors’, funded by the European Commission during 2011-14, coordinated by the National Technical University
of Athens (NTUA).  Project website with publications: http://environ.chemeng.ntua.gr/ecowater/ Publications include:
Levidow, L. et al. 2014. Improving water-efficient irrigation: prospects and difficulties of innovative practices,  Agricultural Water Management 146: 84–94.
Levidow, L. et al. (2016) Industry eco-innovation strategies for process upgrading: systemic limits of internalising externalities, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management (TASM), 28(2): 190-204.

‘Knowledge Production for Sustainable Bioenergy: An analysis of UK decision processes and priorities', funded by the ESRC during 2011-12. PI: Dr Les Levidow, Co-I: Professor Theo Papaioannou.
Publications at https://www.researchcatalogue.esrc.ac.uk/grants/RES-062-23-2701/read
Publications include:
Levidow, L. and Papaioannou, T. 2014. UK biofuel promotion: Envisaging sustainable biofuels, shaping institutions and futures, Environment and Planning A 46(1): 280-298.
Levidow, L. and Papaioannou, T. 2015. Policy-driven, narrative-based evidence-gathering: UK priorities for decarbonisation through biomass, Science and Public Policy 43(1): 46-61.

'Co-operative Research on Environmental Problems in Europe (CREPE)’, funded by the European Commission during 2008-2010. PI: Dr Les Levidow, Co-I: Dr Sue Oreszczyn.
CREPE description, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/89671/factsheet/en
CREPE publications: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/89671/results/en
More publications: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Environmental-Problems-in-Europe-(-CREPE-)-%3A-What/778ce4d4995e1ea29c4fd84fe239086dcc5d8007

‘Facilitating Alternative Agro-food Networks (FAAN): Stakeholder Perspectives on Research Needs’, funded by the European Commission during 2008-2010.
FAAN description, https://www.ifz.at/eng/Research/Food-Systems/Finished-Projects/FAAN
FAAN publications, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/88615/factsheet/en

Earlier projects on agri-biotech controversy and regulation through 2004:
Research reports and journal papers are on the Biotechnology Policy Group webpages, http://technology.open.ac.uk/cts/bpg.htm

Teaching interests

OU course teams

DD319, Environmental Policy in a Global Context
Author of 'Environmental Activism', week 16

DD870, Understanding Global Development Masters course
Author of 'Inclusive Innovation', week 16

Impact and engagement

See Digital Storytelling and AgroEcos projects above

External collaborations

See Digital Storytelling and AgroEcos projects above

International links

See AgroEcos and Food Sovereignty projects above

Projects

Food sovereignty through agroecology in South America: Interdisciplinary methods for participatory action research

Food sovereignty through agroecology has become a prominent agenda throughout Latin America. Responding to various harms from industrial agriculture, this alternative seeks to empower low-income communities to control how food is produced, traded and consumed. It has been widely linked with agroecological food production, which relies largely on farmers’ knowledge of locally available renewable resources rather than external inputs. Short supply chains build solidarity links; these gain higher incomes for small-scale producers, provide more nutritious food at a lower price for consumers, and lighten resource burdens. This agenda has been a focus of academic research, often through participatory action research with small-scale farmers to strengthen their collective capacities. But the research methods remain somewhat implicit and fragmented. A continent-wide workshop will bring together several academics (and some practitioners) who have been carrying out participatory action research on food sovereignty through agroecology. Held in Spanish and Portuguese, the workshop format will facilitate a horizontal learning process about various current methods, their strengths and weaknesses. Participants will discuss how to integrate, strengthen and spread the best research practices throughout Latin America. The report will present these recommendations as well as describe the workshop process so that it can be replicated elsewhere. In those ways, the workshop will build a continent-wide interdisciplinary network around participatory action research methods for food sovereignty through agroecology. Partners will also visit each others’ research sites to better understand their research methods. The research network will become more strongly placed to gain grants for empirical studies applying and refining the research methods.

Local food-growing initiatives respond to the Covid-19 crisis: enhancing well-being, building community for better futures

In responding to the Covid-19 crisis, many initiatives have mobilised to support emergency food provision to vulnerable individuals and then expanded group food cultivation activities. Such activities enhance participants’ well-being, strengthen social cohesion, localise food provision and thus strengthen the basis for a better future. Third-sector food programmes facilitated such activities driven by various community-based groups. Food cultivation initiatives have found widespread enthusiasm but difficulties to attract the more vulnerable marginalised people who would most benefit. This project will investigate that expansion, its social dynamics, their benefits, limitations and thus means to overcome them, especially for involving more vulnerable marginalised social groups. It will experiment with novel approaches for better integrating such groups into food cultivation activities. To do so, the project will develop Participatory Action Research (PAR) with third-sector programmes which were already coordinating cultivation activities before the crisis have recently expanded them in response, and can help engage community groups in answering the research questions. As project Partners, they likewise can help disseminate the results in practical ways and stimulate similar initiatives throughout the sector. The research methods will emphasise visual approaches whose results will enhance research insights and help to raise wide engagement in the Participatory Action Research (PAR) process and outcomes; thus they will inspire and catalyse similar initiatives throughout the UK. The outputs will help third-sector projects to expand group cultivation activities by engaging a more diverse range of societal groups. Broader societal involvement would promote better mental health, well-being, direct food access and socio-ecological resilience.

Research partnership for an agroecology-based solidarity economy in Bolivia and Brazil

Agroecology-based Solidarity Economy in Bolivia and Brazil (AgroEcos) https://projetoagroecos.wixsite.com/meusite Funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), 2020-2021 Over the past decade, Latin America has had a greater convergence between solidarity economy (economia solidaria) and agroecology, here called EcoSol-agroecology as a short name. This convergence builds short food-supply chains (circuitos curtos) bringing agroecological producers closer to consumers, thus building solidaristic relationships. The various means include: public procurement for school meals, farmers’ markets and regular box schemes, sometimes organized as Community-Supported Agriculture. Research questions The project originally planned to investigate two main questions: • How do EcoSol-agroecology networks develop collective capacities for solidaristic circuitos curtos? • How can participatory action-research help to identify and strengthen those capacities? We had planned to investigate our research questions through in-person workshops using various cultural methods (e.g. narratives, art, social cartography, music, etc.). Given the Covid-19 pandemic and its hygiene restrictions, we had to postpone that plan. Moreover, EcoSol-agroecology networks faced new obstacles to their close relationships with consumers. So we added more research questions, for example: • How do these networks extend their previous practices and capacities? • How do they convert difficulties into opportunities? • How do they overcome obstacles, construct learning and conceive new strategies? To explore those questions, we have used online methods, especially webinars here. Partners and their case studies Open University, UK, coordinates the project. Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), São Paulo, investigates two territories: • Baixada Santista, in partnership with the Fórum de Economia Solidária da Baixada Santista (FESBS). • Bocaina (Costa Verde), in partnership with the Observatório de Territórios Sustentáveis e Saudáveis da Bocaina (OTSS) and the Fórum de Comunidades Tradicionais (FCT). Comunidad de Estudio Jaina, Tarija, Bolivia, investigates the Valle Central in partnership with the Bioferia agroecological producers. English-language outputs Pandemic context AgroEcos Boletim no.1 (trilingual bulletin) December 2020 ‘Return to normal’ from the COVID-19 crisis? , May 2020 Participatory Action Research during the Covid-19 pandemic: methodological aspects (March 2021), Pre-pandemic context Agroecological innovation constructing socionatural order: Two case studies in Brazil, Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society 4(1): 1-29 Socio-environmental justice: traditional communities renewing musical cultures in the Bocaina, Brazil

Appetite for Change

Food poverty is a local, national and global problem. Evidence shows there is a dominant business model and an imbalance of power in the current food supply chain. Facilitate a knowledge exchange between the actors across the supply chain. By combining existing knowledge about food supply chains, social enterprise systems and local knowledge. We will use this to create local pilot projects that include co-production of knowledge for a community driven food supply system. This will come out of a series of workshops and mini feasts.

Supergen AD-Pyrolysis Project (XD-12-121-LL)

The proposal to be submitted to SuperGen would concentrate on linking pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion (AD), as identified within the funding calls remit of linking bioconversion and thermal conversion technologies and demonstrated from lab to pilot scale at 400 KWel each. Research would utilise novel feed stocks suitable for pyrolysis deriving from wet and dry anaerobic digestion and using the end-products of the pyrolysis process as new feed stocks for the AD process. The digestibility of these new feeds stocks will be examined in relation to the dynamics of the bacterial populations present. Therefore, linking these two technologies would increase the energy yield obtained from each biomass processed.

Knowledge production for sustainable bio-energy: an analysis of UK decision processes and priorities. (XD-09-103-LL)

Our research aims to analyse the processes under which policy makers select research priorities for sustainable bio-energy in the UK. This topic has current policy relevance, especially given the various potential pathways that were not selected as research priorities. Our preliminary research suggests that accounts and practices of knowledge production in an emerging low-carbon bio-economy have a major impact on research policy. These observations give rise to our over-arching research question: In what ways do discourses and practices of techno-scientific knowledge figure in selecting national research priorities for sustainable bio-energy from a wider range of options?

Meso-level ecoefficiency indicators to assess technologies and their uptake in water use sectors (XD-10-103-LL)

EcoWater will address the development of meso-level eco-efficiency indicators for technology assessment through a systems' approach. The effort will focus on enhancing the understanding of the interrelations of innovative technology uptake in water use systems, and their economic and environmental impacts. Research will address the selection of indicators appropriate for assessing system-wide eco-efficiency improvements, the integration of existing tools and assessment methods in a coherent modelling environment, and the analysis and characterisation of existing structures and policies. The development of an analytical framework is foreseen, to support: (i) Systemic environmental impact assessments, (ii) Economic assessments, (iii) Analysis of value chains and actor interactions, and (iv) Technology implementation and uptake scenarios. Eight Case Studies will be developed, in different systems and sectors of high economic relevance and environmental impact, addressing water use in agricultural, urban and industrial sectors. Two Case Studies will focus on shifts from rainfed to irrigated agriculture and innovations that can reduce water and energy footprints and production inputs. Two Case Studies will address sustainable and economically efficient water supply and wastewater management in urban areas. Four Case Studies will concern meso-level eco-efficiency improvements from innovative technologies in water systems for the textile industry, for energy production, for dairy production and in the automotive industry. The main outputs include a validated and tested methodological framework, an integrated toolbox for systems' eco-efficiency analysis, and policy recommendations for technology uptake and implementation. For ensuring wide dissemination and applicability, the project foresees activities to address different target audiences and to develop operational science-industry-policy links at the level of Case Studies and at wider EU and international scale.

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Dr Les Levidow

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