Kate Raworth's Blog, page 2

School Winners of the 8th Way to Think Like a 21st Century Economist!

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Back in January, Rethinking Economics and Doughnut Economics got together and launched a competition based on the ‘seven ways to think like a 21st century economist’ set out in Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics. The challenge that we threw down was this: 

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We’ve been amazed and delighted to receive over 250 entries across three categories – schools, universities, and everyone else – covering a very wide range of themes. And we have been sent a brilliant array of ideas, perspectives, formats and presentations – from text, drawings, audio, and video, to animations, cartoons, prezis, and more.

In other words, we’ve been bowled over by the response. So here’s a very big thank you to everyone who has entered and shared their ideas so generously and creatively – we can’t wait to share them all back with you (keep an eye out for that, coming on Friday 7th June!).

Having assembled a crack team of new-economics judges, we asked them to select the entries that they felt conveyed the most brilliant and most important ideas, most compellingly told. They got to work – and today we are delighted to announce the winners of the Schools category.

First, we want to thank and congratulate every single school student who entered the competition – we were really impressed and inspired by the conviction inherent in the ideas you submitted, and the brilliant ways you shared them. We hope that every one of you will keep on rethinking economics to help make it fit for the century ahead.

As for our winners – here’s goes, with a big drum roll……!

SCHOOLS – FIRST PLACE:

‘From Division of Labour to Cohesive Partnership’ by Presence Tse

Presence Tse

Our judges say:

Congratulations, Presence for this powerful, personal and punchy way of conveying such important ideas in a way that everyone can understand. Yes we must recognise humanity’s limits alongside planetary limits – you make your case convincingly and memorably – Kate Raworth

A powerful call for an economics that puts people at its centre. You said in your video that ‘you’re not an economist’ – well I think this entry disproves that theory! – Ross Cathcart

Three runners up (in alphabetical order)

RUNNER UP: ‘Valuing Sustainability in the Price Mechanism’ by Karanvir Singh Kumar

Karanvir Singh Kumar

Our judges say:

The different parts of the argument fitted together well. I liked: the focus on the household as a way of thinking about consumers; the need for innovation to make sustainable living easy; and ‘mindfulness in demand and sustainability in supply’. Congratulations! – Naila Kabeer

Good substance with a clear presentation! – Nancy Folbre

RUNNER UP: ‘Moderate the Fixation on Profits: from profit-obsessed to principle-driven’ by Yun Soo Park and Rhea Kale

Yun Soo Park and Rhea Kale

Our judges say:

A clever animation with a challenge to Adam Smith and the optimality of invisible hand solutions. Along with the focus on managers, you may want to focus more on the role of shareholders too – Naila Kabeer

Well done – I like both the argument and the presentation – Nancy Folbre

RUNNER UP: ‘ Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity ‘ text (in the link) and drawing (below) by Micol Zubrickante

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Our judges say:

Good emphasis on changing culture and mind sets by reversing the geography of power and interdisciplinary education – Naila Kabeer

Kudos for placing economics in the warm light of reality – you are absolutely right that context matters and shapes the possibilities that we consider real, and the realities that we consider possible. An imaginative illustration too! – Kate Raworth

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So congratulations to all our Schools winners – now let’s get to work turning these ideas into reality.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 5th June) we’ll be announcing the winners of the Universities category, and on Thursday 6th June we’ll announce the winners among Everyone Else.

On Friday 7th June we’ll be turning this competition into a unique collaboration, so keep a look out for a brilliant celebration of all of the ideas submitted…

Oops! Here’s the real competition link…

So sorry if yesterday you couldn’t open the link to the 8th Way to Think Competition – this is the correct one, and we’d love to see your ideas as an entry!

It’s competition time!

Have you got a brilliant idea for 21st century economics? Can you tell it short and sweet? If the answer is yes! yes! then this competition is just for you . . .

Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist proposes seven mindset shifts to make economics fit for addressing this century’s challenges. But many other shifts are needed too so, in order to explore them, I joined forces with Rethinking Economics – the international student movement for pluralism in economics education – to launch a competition based on this challenge:

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We’ve got a totally stellar panel of judges – all economic re-thinkers themselves – who are ready to review your entries and select the very best as winners. And there are separate categories for school students, university students, and everyone else – so yes, your idea really does stand a chance of standing out. Check out the full competition details here and please help spread the message far and wide in your networks – with the hashtag #8thwaytothink – because we want to celebrate all the fantastic new economic thinking that is bubbling up. So get rethinking and good luck!

Doughnut Economics Competition

How can universities teach more students more about climate change?

Research and blog by Hollie Ryan, Isadora Ferreira and Kate Raworth

Many universities recognise the crucial role that they can play in raising awareness and understanding of climate change amongst their students. We wanted to learn about the different ways in which this is being done so in late October we crowdsourced examples, via Twitter, of different approaches being taken.

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Based on the many examples shared with us, we have drawn up five broad approaches, ranging from narrow to broad in scope.

Focused Degree Programmes: degrees focused specifically on teaching the complex problems and solutions to climate change.
Focused Researched Centres: research centres dedicated to understanding and solving the complex problems the world faces as a result of climate change.
Optional Modules and Extra Qualifications: additional learning which can be undertaken by both students and staff to understand climate change.
University-wide Integrated Initiatives: integrating climate-change awareness in teaching across the whole higher-education institute, reaching various disciplines and departments.
Trans-university Integrated Initiatives: externally led integration of climate-change awareness into university teaching, and collaboration between universities.

What follows below – and in our more detailed report and database – is a listing, not a ranking: we have not assessed the efficacy of the individual initiatives, nor of the different approaches. It is also illustrative, not exhaustive, including only those initiatives that we were made aware of during our phase of Twitter crowdsourcing. And it focuses only on ways of addressing climate change through teaching, not across all university operations, such as divestment and energy efficiency measures (for this wider assessment in the UK, see the People and Planet University League Tables).

1. Focused Degree Programmes: various universities have created dedicated degree programmes focused on the importance of sustainable development and tackling climate change, focusing on the key issues, potential changes and solutions.

The University of Warwick is a key example of this, offering a BASc Global Sustainable Development, both as a single honours and joint degree. The Joint Honours stream offers the chance to combine the unique interdisciplinary approach of GSD with a growing amount of conventional degree programmes including Politics, Economics, Biology, Psychology and History. The department employ a problem-based learning approach, introducing students to critical issues such as climate change and social justice, asking them to propose innovative solutions to these complex problems.

The University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, designed a BSc programmed based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on the ethical and philosophical context of global and climate change issues. The MSc in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation from Lund University, in Sweden, offers a mix of practical and theoretical learning on climate change, with a strong focus on adaptation. The programme has an unique opportunity to conduct research for their Master’s thesis with public, NGO and private organisations in various parts of the world.

2. Focused Research Centres: universities have also set up dedicated institutes to research climate change and its impacts.

The Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford was established to organise and promote interdisciplinary research on the nature, causes and impact of environmental change and to contribute to the development of management strategies for coping with future environmental change.

Similarly, the TERI School of Advanced Studies in New Delhi, was the first school in India to dedicate itself to the study of the environment, energy, natural sciences and sustainable development.

The Centre for Sustainable Fashion is a research centre of the University of the Arts London, based at London College of Fashion. Research focuses on human and ecological resilience as a lens for design in fashion’s artistic and business practices.

3. Optional Modules and Extra Qualifications: offering extra qualifications and optional modules is another way universities are incorporating climate change into teaching, free and open to students of all disciplines.

Several universities in the UK have created optional models. University of Surrey designed a free course open to all its students based on the three pillars of sustainability (economic, social and environmental). Students can apply this learning to solve real-life case studies on climate change issues. On the other hand, Bristol University offers “Bristol Futures Optional Units” for under undergraduates. In 2018/19, the units available on climate change focused on the interlink between climate change and cities, sustainable development and sustainability and inequality.

In the Netherlands, the Hanze University of Applied Sciences developed the Futures Literacy, within UNESCO, to address future societal challenges. Their approach is through learning by doing and enable participants to reveal, reframe and rethink their assumptions about the future and climate change.

4. University-wide Integrated Initiatives: integrating climate change teaching and initiatives into broader university initiatives, aimed not only to teaching students, but also staff has also been carried by institutions across the globe.

In the UK, Manchester Metropolitan University has created several initiatives, from the Big Impact programme – a series of events, activities, learning on climate change, available to their staff, students and local community members –  to the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Group, consisting of staff and students who work to embed and communicate ESD activities and projects on climate change and other sustainability issues. Academics and students can undertake projects with the Environment Team and the Estates Directorate linking these to their coursework, placements and research activities.

In the Netherlands, Maastricht University created a Green Office to develop  bottom-up initiatives and facilitates cooperation between departments to achieve its sustainability goals and raise awareness/collaborative thinking about sustainability challenges, including climate change. This model has now spread to 27 higher education institutions across six countries. The University for Peace, is particularly interesting as it focuses its teaching of climate change from  both an ecological and social perspectives.

5. Trans-University Integrated Initiatives: universities working in alliances to integrate and foster climate teaching across the education system.

In the UK, more than 20 universities have taken part in the NUS Responsible Futures, which created an accreditation mark and framework to assist these institutions in helping students to gain knowledge regarding climate change and broader sustainability issues. Another British example is the The Carbon Literacy Project, originating in, offers everyone who works, lives or studies in the Manchester and wider area, a day’s of teaching about climate change and carbon emissions. Its differential is that it highlights the role of individual in fostering change while supporting individuals to cascade effect on a much wider audience.

Forty-eight low-income countries across Africa and Asia have developed the The Least Developed Countries (LDC) Universities Consortium on Climate Change (LUCC). This is an unique network of Southern universities to develop common research projects and implement teaching and training programs in different climate change topics.

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Surveying these five diverse approaches, it is clear that universities can raise awareness of sustainability and climate change in many different ways, and that every university can find an approach that fits its circumstances.

The examples prompt many questions. Can and should universities integrate climate change into all their subjects teaching? Should more focused courses, or wider education campaigns, be pursued? Should universities work in strategic networks or work on developing their own initiatives? Which approaches have the greatest lasting impact with students? And which universities are doing the best job in each of the five approaches? These are just a few questions that the findings prompt.

We hope that this crowd-sourced survey will serve to inform and inspire – please share this blog summary, and the far more detailed report and database that we have created widely. We will not be adding further examples or categories to this set, but anyone is welcome to use both the report and the database as the basis for further research.

Doing the Doughnut at the G20?

This weekend the G20 are meeting in Argentina, with the aim (they say) of ‘building consensus for fair and sustainable development’. Since they collectively generate 85% of global GDP, whether they do or don’t transform their economies will profoundly affect us all. So how close to the Doughnut’s safe and just space are the G20?

Here’s one way of assessing it, using the pioneering national doughnut analysis by Dan O’Neill, Andrew Fanning, Julia Steinberger and Will Lamb at the University of Leeds. Using the best-available, internationally comparable data, they scaled the global concept of the Doughnut down to the national level for over 150 countries (only including those for which there were sufficient data – as a result, Saudi Arabia is unfortunately missing from this G20 analysis. The EU28 group is also not available for this analysis).

In essence, national doughnuts aim to reflect the extent to which a country is meeting its people’s essential needs while at the same time ensuring that its use of Earth’s resources remains within its share of the planet’s biophysical boundaries.

Since Argentina is hosting the talks, let’s take its national doughnut as an illustration. The aim is to fill the centre circle in blue, while not overshooting the green ring of the biophysical boundary. Like many countries worldwide, Argentina is both falling short on some social dimensions while already overshooting multiple biophysical boundaries.

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The methodology for these national doughnuts is a work in progress, of course, but the indicators and data underlying them are improving year-on-year, and when taken as an overview of 150 countries, the initial analysis reveals some valuable 21st century insights.

In the chart below, humanity’s sweet spot – living in the Doughnut – lies in the top left-hand corner: a place where all social thresholds are met, without transgressing any biophysical boundaries.

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So what does this 150 country overview reveal? Three insights jump out.

1. We are all developing countries now. The Doughnut challenge turns all countries – including every member of the G20 – into ‘developing countries’ because no country in the world can say that it is even close to meeting the needs of all of its people within the means of the planet. (If you are wondering which is that one country closer than the rest, it’s Viet Nam – but is it heading for the Doughnut, or moving straight past it?)

2. New development pathways need new names. There are currently three broad clusters of countries making very different 21st century journeys, as labeled in the version of the diagram below:

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A. Countries that are barely crossing any planetary boundaries, but are falling very far short on meeting people’s needs, including G20 members India and Indonesia. The development path that these nations must now pursue has never taken before. Copying the degenerative industrial path of today’s high-income countries (Group C), would most likely collapse Earth’s life-supporting systems.

B. Many middle-income, ‘emerging’ economies – including G20 members like Brazil, Russia, China, Argentina and South Africa – are both falling short on social needs while already crossing biophysical boundaries. These countries are now making future-defining investments in urbanization, energy systems and transport networks. Will these infrastructural investments take them further away from the doughnut, or start bringing them towards it?

C. Today’s high-income countries ­– including G20 members like the US, UK, France, Germany and the EU 28 itself – cannot be called developed, given that their resource consumption is greatly overshooting Earth’s boundaries and, in the process, undermining prospects for all other countries. These high-income nations, too, are on an unprecedented developmental journey: to sustain good living standards while moving back within Earth’s biophysical boundaries.

D. No country is yet in sweet-spot cluster D (for Doughnut!) – so how many years until some are there, and which will make it there first?

Given that the labels ‘developing’ and ‘developed’ no longer make sense in the 21st century context, how can we best rename these four clusters of countries? In comments on this blog, and on Twitter, please do share suggestions for inventive and memorable names for these very different country clusters facing the Doughnut challenge. Naming is framing, so let’s rename and reframe the future of development…

3. Transformative goals demand transformative approaches. Given that none of these three development paths have been pursued before – let alone have yet been achieved – it would be bizarre to think that last century’s economic theories, policy prescriptions and business models would equip us for what lies ahead. Getting into the Doughnut is our generational challenge and it demands transformational mindsets, models and action in economics, policymaking, and business.

As the world’s major economies, the G20 should be leading this transformation, with countries starting in all three country clusters. But since a key current criterion of G20 membership is having a large GDP, each country is geopolitically locked in to pursuing GDP growth to keep its place in the annual G20 Family Photo. So for leadership on the Doughnut Challenge, look, instead, to the Wellbeing Economy Governments, or #WeGO, an emerging grouping of countries – among them New Zealand, Scotland and Iceland – that are focusing on economic wellbeing and have a far greater chance of putting regenerative and distributive policies into practice.

Let me leave the G20 with the question that this summit should be asking:

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Economic Man vs. Humanity: a puppet rap battle

An economist, a songwriter, and a puppet-maker walked into a recording studio. What do you think came out?. . . An economics puppet rap battle, of course.

One of the most dangerous stories at the heart of 20th century economics is the depiction of humanity as rational economic man. In my book Doughnut Economics I decided he needed a portrait so I drew him, standing alone, with money in his hand, ego in his heart, a calculator in his head and nature at his feet. He hates work, he loves luxury and he knows the price of everything.

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Now here’s the most fascinating (and unnerving) thing I discovered while researching the history and influence of this character. The more that economics students learn about him – from Year 1 to Year 2 to Year 3 of their studies – the more they say they value traits such as self-interest and competition over traits such as altruism and collaboration.

The implication? Who we tell ourselves we are shapes who we become.

Over the past year I have been contacted by many economics teachers around the world – especially those in secondary schools – who want to encourage their students to critique this text-book model and offer them a far more nuanced understanding of human behaviour.

So that got me thinking…

I teamed up with the brilliant puppet designer Emma Powell and the ingenious musician Simon Panrucker and, with funding from the Network for Social Change (big thanks, folks!), we created this video – Economic Man vs Humanity: a puppet rap battle.

We’d love to see it in use in classrooms, conferences, reading groups, community groups, and shared widely on social media, on web platforms, on teaching resource sites.

If you are a teacher, please do use it to start a debate in your classroom (the video ends with a question for that very reason). Download the complete lyrics of the rap, and if your students want to dive further into the back story and future possibilities of Rational Economic Man, then I recommend Chapter 3 of Doughnut Economics, which was the basis for the whole project.

If you are a student, please do share the video with your fellow future economists, get your teacher involved, and help kick off a much-needed discussion.

And if you host a web discussion, a new economics resource site, a community network, or a teachers’ forum, you are very welcome to feature the film on your site – we’d love to hear what you do with it.

So sit back and enjoy the Puppet Rap Battle – sing along, pass it on, and let’s say farewell to Rational Economic Man. Today’s students know that it’s time to create a better portrait of who we are for 21st century economics.

 

Seaside Reads to Change the World

Last week at the seaside, while I was browsing in my favourite second-hand bookshop, the owner said to me “If I was going to create a shelf called ‘Change the World’, what books would you recommend to go on it?” I started reeling off the books that have most influenced me, soon realised that this could take quite a long time, then decided that it would be far more fun to ask Twitter. So I tweeted:

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Within a week, thanks to the Twitterati, 300 fantastic recommendations came pouring in. Amongst all the tweets and replies, I was really lucky to meet Lucy Feibusch who very generously offered to compile the long stream of suggestions into one incredibly valuable list by clustering them into broad thematic categories – and she even topped off each one with a one-line summary and link (wow, thank you Lucy!)

So here’s a hive-mind response to the bookshop-keeper’s question.

You can download the complete list here as pdf or as a Googlesheet. Lucy and I stopped when we reached 300 books and we are not going to add any more to it – but do feel free to download and start curating your own version.

Of course it doesn’t include everything (only what Twitter suggested last week) and, like any quirky second-hand bookshop, it does include a few anomalies (you can decide which ones they are). Many of the books could have been put under different categories – but remember this is a seaside list, not a library catalogue, so we hope you enjoy, use, and share it in that spirit.

And if you are wondering where this particular seaside bookshop is, well the owner is social-media shy so I promised not to tell. If you happen to know it, keep it to yourself. If you don’t, why not head to your own favourite bookshop (secondhand or new) or your local library, share the list, and suggest they create their own ‘Change the World’ shelf. Who knows what that might lead to…

Here’s to the power of books and the inspiration of the crowd. Get browsing.

Kate and Lucy

For 21st century progress, pick your paradigm…

I spent a day at the OECD in Paris earlier this week, and had fascinating discussions there. They had asked me to be provocative so I proposed they rewrite Article 1a of the OECD’s founding constitution – and I later tweeted it like this:

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That tweet caught the attention of Branko Milanovic, who is one of the world’s leading economists in analysing global income inequality trends, and whose work I hugely admire (and cite in Doughnut Economics, of course).

Branko had a visceral reaction against my suggestion, prompting him to write a fiery blog on why economic growth is an inevitable necessity in all countries, no matter how rich they already are.

What fascinated me in reading Branko’s blog was the deep difference in the fundamentals underlying the worldviews that he and I hold – differences that implicitly underpin many public debates today.

So I have done my best to summarise the crux of Branko’s position in just five bullet points – and then to write down, in equally stark terms, a five-point summary of my own, very different, worldview (spelt out more fully here).

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I absolutely understand why Branko might find my assumptions and beliefs untenable – just as I hope he would understand why I think his are equally so.

Here I’m not interested in twitter spats or bloggers’ boxing matches – they are ten-a-penny online and there are far more fruitful ways to engage.

I sincerely believe we – humanity – are at a critical juncture in determining our chances of having a flourishing planet on which we all can thrive this century. And the economic worldview that we use will significantly shape that. So there is much to be gained by engaging respectfully with those who disagree with us.

Hence I’m taking this opportunity to step back and acknowledge that both of our visions of the future include strong beliefs about human nature versus human nurture, big uncertainties about how economic variables may respond, deep assumptions about how much change is possible, and lots of hope about how the future might be different from the past.

Neither route is easy. Neither is proven. And a lot depends upon the choices we make.

Listening respectfully to those who disagree with us is a fascinating (and still too rare) thing to do.

So thanks for the opportunity, Branko.

Happy birthday, Neoliberalism, and farewell.

Seventy years ago this month – in April 1947 – economists Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and friends met in the Swiss village of Mont Pelerin to write a new economic story, and they called it Neoliberalism. Their story was put on the international stage in the 1980s (thanks, Maggie, thanks Ronnie) and it has ruled us ever since.

Today I’m thrilled to launch a brand new Doughnut Economics animation that tells this story – and it’s been brilliantly animated by the fabulously talented Tom Lee at Rocket Visual.

It’s time for a new economic story that’s fit for the 21st century – but how should that story begin? That’s the question at the heart of Doughnut Economics.

Please share this video far and wide – we need the talent of many storytellers to write a new one fit for our times….