Dr Kate Seymour PhD, FHEA
Lecturer in Sustainability
My profile
Biography
My work explores collaborative, democratic sustainability action/activism, particularly within communities and organisations, with a current focus on nature regeneration, recovery and reconnection. One important dimension of this is an interest in transformative learning for cultivating reflexivity and ecocentric imaginaries. I also critically interrogate shifting organisational and political discourses of sustainability, focusing on the intersections between social justice and environmental sustainability, and locating this work within our current political economic context. My work is interdisciplinary, drawing particularly on political and critical theory, as well as ecofeminist and social reproductive feminist thought. I use participatory action research and qualitative methodologies and am currently particularly inspired by approaches to ‘writing differently.’
Interests and expertise
- Democratic praxis, particularly in organisations and communities
- Care Ethics/Carelessness
- Transformative sustainability pedagogy and ecological reflexivity
- Neoliberalism in Higher Education
- Participatory Research
- Writing Differently
- CMS and Critical Theory
Impact
I am involved in the following funded projects:
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Principle Investigator of £7000 Research Accelerator Grant with Dr Helena Kettleborough on ‘Collaborations for Urban Nature Recovery: Transformative Community, Leadership and Learning in Rusholme.’ (January - December 2024)
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Co-Investigator on £1,500 PRME-funded project with Dr Rosalyn Marron and Dr Helena Kettleborough entitled ‘Developing Spaces to Flourish: Outdoor/Indoor Eco Reflexive Learning’ (January 2024 - January 2025)
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Principle Investigator on £2000 seed-corn funded project on ‘Careless Sustainability’ (January - December 2023).
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Co-investigator on £22,000 IAA-funded project with Colchester Borough Council entitled: ‘Achieving Net Zero Carbon Goals through Improved Stakeholder Engagement in Climate Action: Implementing Colchester Borough Council’s Blue and Green Infrastructure Strategy Focusing on the River Colne.’ (May - August 2022).
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Led on a funded participatory public engagement event entitled ‘Connecting Care and Climate: Feminist Approaches to a Green Recovery’ as part of the ESRC-funded Festival of Social Sciences (November 2021), explored in this blog post.
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Research Officer on IAA-funded project with Colchester Borough Council for workshop delivery on ‘Participatory Budgeting and Climate Actions’ (September – December 2021)
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Research Officer and Co-investigator on IAA-funded project with Colchester Borough Council for workshop delivery on ‘Organisational Change for Net Zero’ (May – July 2021)
Teaching
A Fellow of the HEA since 2015, I joined MMU in 2022 and teach across our Sustainability provision at all levels. I am also proud to be a member of the multi-award-winning Staff and Student Sustainability Group in SES.
I developed and lead on our MSc Sustainability Research Projects capstone unit. Using an ‘exploding university’ approach, student teams co-create and conduct a sustainability-themed research project with an external organisation. We are keen to work with local SMEs, social enterprises and community groups to develop future projects and any interested organisations should please get in touch for further information.
I am currently Unit Lead for L4 Global Concerns in Sustainable Development which is a core unit for the Business Management programme. As a Carbon Literacy Champion for SES, have co-led on embedding Carbon Literacy within this unit.
I also teach on our Degree Apprenticeship programmes as Unit Lead for Sustainability and Innovation (L6) and am a member of the teaching team on the Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship.
Previously I taught UG, PG and MBA modules at Essex Business School including International Business, Business Strategy, Research Methods in Management and Marketing, Operations and Supply Chain Management, Introduction to Management, and Research Skills for Professional Development (January 2021-May 2022).
Supervision
I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in working on projects connected to my areas of expertise.
Research outputs
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Reports
Seymour, K., Kimani, D., Adhikari, P., Soobaroyen, T., Jayasinghe, K. (2022) Co-producing a new Blue-and-Green Infrastructure Strategy for Colchester Borough: Key Findings from the River Colne Pilot. University of Essex.
Seymour, K., Kimani, D., Adhikari, P., Soobaroyen, T., Jayasinghe, K. (2022) Co-producing a new Blue-and-Green Infrastructure Strategy for Colchester Borough: key findings from the River Colne Pilot: Executive Summary. University of Essex.
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Journal articles
Seymour, K. (2022) 'Circling the divide: gendered invisibility, precarity and professional service work in a UK Business School.' Gender, Work and Organization,