Dr Sarah Bradshaw

Professor of Gender and Sustainable Development

Sarah Bradshaw

  • School Faculty of Business and Law

  • Department Centre for Policing

  • Location London

Research activities

Key areas

Gender and development; Gendered disaster risk reduction and response 

Gender roles and relations within households

Poverty and poverty reduction strategies; The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

NGOs, social movements and civil society; Feminism and activism

Selected external presentations

Invited participant: ‘Feminist Roadmap for Sustainable Peace and Planet’ hosted by the Consortium of Gender, Security and Human Rights with the Swedish government,  Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s, New York, 5 – 9th December 2022 

Invited speaker, National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India: Women and Disasters: Missing Women‘s Perspective, 17th August 2021 

Key note address: ‘Understandings of ‘natural’ and ‘disasters’ in the time of pandemic: Reflections on gendered differences in conceptualising and contextualising Covid-19’ for The Australian National University in Canberra, 10th February 2021

Key note: UK Alliance for Disaster Research annual meeting ‘Taking an intersectional approach to disaster risk reduction and response: Issues in policy and practice’ 11th September 2020.

Key note speaker: First Anniversary event of the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction,  Centre for Gender and Disaster, UCL, London, 6th March 2019

Invited speaker: Biodiversity and Climate Change with a Gender Focus, event hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Congress, Santiago de Chile, 9th October 2019

Key note speaker: High-level conference on Women, Peace and Security hosted by the Commander in Chief of the Swedish Armed Forces, Stockholm, 1-3 October 2018

Invited speaker: United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) 70th Anniversary event ‘Substantive and Analytical Workshop:  Rethinking Development in a World of Transition’, ECLAC Headquarters Santiago de Chile, 27 -  28th August 2018.

Invited participant at workshop ‘Operationalizing the Leave No One Behind Agenda’. Overseas Development Institute / University of Cambridge, February 21-22, 2018.

Invited speaker at: UN High Level International Forum on Innovation for Sustainable Development. Organized by the State Government of Guanajuato and the UNSECO Office of Mexico. September 11th – 13th 2017, Guanajuato, Mexico.

Invited speaker at ‘Gender Justice and Extractive Industries: Setting the Change Agenda’. A strategic dialogue hosted by Oxfam America. March 23rd, 2017, Washington DC.

Invited speaker on ‘Gendered aspects of Climate Change’ at Global Communities workshop, funded by USAID. Managua, Nicaragua, 21st March 2017.

Invited speaker at round table: Parliament, policy and sustainable development: SDG 5. Betty Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House, Westminster, 24th November 2016.

Invited participant at the workshop ‘Feminist Playbook for Security and Sustainable Peace’ to discuss the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda rooted in UN Security Council Resolution 1325 financed by the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, Oslo, June 2015.

Invited participant in the high-level expert group meeting on ‘The Urban Sustainable Development Goal, Targets and Indicators’, hosted by the UNSDSN and the Urban SDG Campaign, August, 2014.

Invited expert to the UN ‘thinkers meeting' on the Political Saliency of Disaster Risk Management as part of the meeting series on The Future of Disaster Risk Management for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, San José, 24-25 March 2014.

Plenary speaker at the UN IANWGE/OECD DAC GENDERNET Biennial Workshop on ‘Gender Equality, Women's Rights And Women's Empowerment: The Cornerstone For Achieving The MDGs And Accelerating Development Beyond 2015', OECD Headquarters, Paris, November 2013.

Invited participant in the ‘Conflict and disasters group' of the ‘Expert Group Meeting on Gender and Agriculture' hosted by the World Bank, FAO and IFAD. The World Bank, Washington16 - 17th March 2009.

Invited speaker on the panel 'The consolidation of democracy' at the Central American Forum, hosted by Canning House and supported by the Office of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and the Embassies of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, 12th - 15th November 2007.

Presentation on ‘Critical perspectives on DfID's Latin America Regional Assistance Plan' to the Latin American team of the UK Government Department for International Development (DfID), June 2005.

Meeting organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) with Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Presentation ‘Gender, Poverty and the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative', House of Commons, March 2004.

Symposium: ‘Overcoming Rights Non-compliance in PRSPs', World Social Forum, Mumbai, India, January 2004.

Meeting of the Members of the European Commission, Brussels. ‘Poverty Reduction Strategies in Central America: The civil society response' organised by the European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD), June 2002. 

Meeting organised by International Cooperation for Development (ICD/CIIR) and chaired by John Battle, MP.  Presentation ‘Engendering Poverty Reduction Strategies in Central America', House of Commons, June 2002. 


Current Teaching

Pedagogic interests

Ensuring quality of content through research led teaching;                                  Supporting student learning through creative assessment;                                      Providing practical skills for enhanced employability;                                          Promoting diversity and equal opportunities within the curriculum

Teaching areas

Policy and policy evaluation;                                                                                  Research Methods;                                                                                                Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity;                                                       Humanitarianism and post-disaster response.

 Innovation

Invited speaker at the IXX edition of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Summer School on the Latin American Economies on ‘The contribution of Feminist Economics to Development. ECLAC Headquarters Santiago de Chile, 27 -  28th August 2018.

Joint development (with Professor Joshua Castellino) and delivery of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Human Rights, Human Wrongs financed via the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network on Equality and Rights in the post-2015 era. First aired September 2016 with 1000+ students enrolled. Aired annually. A taught module also delivered in Middlesex utilising the MOOC resources

 Provision of lectures on Feminist and theory and Post Structuralism for Kulturstudier In cooperation with the faculty of International Studies at Oslo and Akershus University College, Leon, Nicaragua March 2015; 2016; 2017

Invited to join the European Association of Development Institutes (EADI) mentoring scheme for early career academics from the Global South (June 2017)

Provision of lectures and PhD and Early Career Academics workshops at Centro de Desarrollo Urbano Sustentable, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, as part of ERASMUS+, 5 – 9th September 2016

Invited speaker at the Geographical Association’s Annual Teaching Conference – Crossing Boundaries - University of Surrey 14 – 16th April, 2014.  


Biography

Dr Bradshaw joined the University in 1994 and over the years has been Programme Leader for various Development Studies and International Politics programmes, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate level. She has held the positions of Head of Department, Head of School, and was interim Academic Dean of the newly formed  Faculty of Business and Law. She is currently Head of the Centre for Policing and Strategic Lead for Policing Education for the University within the Police Education Consortium.  

She has been involved with Equal Opportunities and Ethics throughout her time at the University and has been Chair of School level Ethics Committees and a member of the University Ethics Committee. She was joint-chair and founder of the University’s Gender Forum. 

She was lead writer for the successful University level Athena Swan award (2021) and more recently the Race Equality Award (2023). 

Her research focuses on the general field of gender and development, with a specific focus on Latin America. All the research she undertakes seeks to have a practical as well as academic application, through informing teaching, as the basis of advocacy initiatives seeking to influence policy makers, or being used to promote discussion and action among actors of organised civil society.

From the late 1990s she has worked with Nicaraguan Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and social and women's movements to promote women's rights. In particular working with the Nicaraguan feminist NGO, Puntos de Encuentro and this work took her into new and emerging fields such as social communication initiatives for social change, including working on their popular TV 'social soaps' Sexto Sentido and Contracorriente.

Living in Nicaragua when Hurricane Mitch struck in 1998, during the relief and reconstruction phase she worked with the Civil Coordinator for Emergency and Reconstruction (CCER), a consortium of NGOs, groups and movements formed in response to the hurricane, and was involved in a number of studies looking at post-disaster reconstruction. This interest in 'disasters' has continued, and informs her research, teaching and PhD supervision today. In 2013 she published the first book on the topic of 'Gender, Development and Disasters' (Edward Elgar). Her expertise in this field has led to work with various UN initiatives, including lobbying during the intergovernmental negotiations over the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015 as well as a number of media appearances.

In 2015 she worked with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a global initiative of the United Nations that worked closely with other United Nations agencies, multilateral financing institutions, as well as other international organizations in shaping the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. She was commissioned to write the report on Women and Economic Development for the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons charged with developing the first, draft set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  

Her recent funded research projects have have included exploring ecosystem services and urban transformations in Brazil (RCUK-CONFAP) and undertaking a Gender Evidence Synthesis on poverty alleviation (ESRC/DFID). She has worked with various international organisations and agencies including the United Nations, most recently working with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development to define and re-launch their Gender and Development programme. 

As Thematic Lead for Gender and Intersectionality she led on developing an innovative approach for drawing lessons learned from the de-colonial and feminist approach adopted on the Gender Responsive Resilience & Intersectionality in Policy and Practice (GRRIPP) project as well as providing a deep, qualitative understanding of the impact of this £4.8 million GCRF Networking plus Partnering for Resilience grant.  

External activities

  • Roles, External organisations ,

    • Publications

    View publications