How to use this guide

This guide was written by a group of PhD researchers at the University of Sheffield (see About Us). While we were affiliated to the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the time of writing (2021-2022), our views do not necessarily represent those of the Grantham Centre. We wrote this guide to facilitate the critical evaluation of conducting PhD research and help other PhD researchers navigate the difficulties of doing a PhD while challenging colonial practices, as we found such a guide lacking when trying to learn about these issues ourselves. In particular, we focus on research that will often be conducted by sustainability researchers. 

As a guide that provides historical and contextual understanding of knowledge production and the role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), it is fairly long but can be read in parts by jumping to specific content. We have split the main content section into three parts, covering Colonial history, Present legacies, and Coloniality of sustainability. We have included links to key references within text, and there is a Resources section for those who want to engage in further reading. 

We believe that active and engaged discussions facilitate learning – as such, we encourage PhD researchers to read this in peer groups, and we provide questions at the end of each section to stimulate discussions. We also include a Glossary section for terms (highlighted in red italics) that may be unfamiliar to some, though we have taken care to provide simple definitions in text as well.