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DFID’s ‘pioneer of sustainable livelihoods’ elected as Honorary Fellow
24 July 2008
Professor
Sir Gordon Conway KCMG FRS – DFID’s Chief Scientific Advisor - has been made an
Honorary Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering.
Playing a key role in shaping DFID’s £1 billion research programme, Professor
Conway has been influential in sharpening the organisation’s thinking on
evidence-based policy making. He has also championed the role of scientists and
engineers in the development of policies on poverty reduction and sustainable
development across Government. Engineering and the Royal Academy’s work have
been a particular interest of his, and he has contributed to its plans for
building engineering capacity with African partners.
Professor Conway says: "I am delighted by the honour conferred on me by the
Royal Academy of Engineering. Although I am a biologist by training my work has
been firmly in applied biology and in that respect I work and behave like an
engineer.
"My father was a mechanical engineer and so I know he would be delighted.
"My work here at DFID is focussed on how we can get science and engineering to
benefit the poor of the world - for example through new medicines and crops,
through new forms of small-scale irrigation, through feeder roads so that
farmers can get their crops to market and through small-scale electricity
generation from micro-hydro schemes and solar power."
Professor Conway was previously President of the Rockefeller Foundation and
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex, and Chair of the Institute for
Development Studies. He also featured in Prospect magazine’s list of 100 most
important living intellectuals in 2005 and was among the 50 people on the
Independent’s “Good List” in 2006.
Professor Conway is also credited with coining the phrase “sustainable
livelihoods” in his influential research paper “Sustainable Rural Livelihoods:
Practical Concepts for the 21st Century", co-authored with Robert Chambers in
1992.
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The Royal Academy of Engineering
- More about DFID and research