The Institute for Inclusive Economies and Sustainable Livelihoods will provide an intellectual environment for the exploration, development, and sharing of diverse economic solutions to the environmental, technological, demographic, and globalization changes that are producing increasing precarity, disruption and loss of livelihood. It will facilitate research and partnerships with community organizations in pursuit of its vision of sustainable and just economic futures in an age of degrowth.
Potential research themes:
- alternative and cooperative economic practices of Indigenous and racialized communities
- data science methods for greater, more equitable prosperity
- training and skills development strategies that encourage personal and economic development
- advanced understanding of the complex interdependencies among nations, localities, and economic agents to facilitate more transparent decision-making.
Inaugural Director Sergio Montero is Associate Professor of Geography and Planning at UTSC, which he joins UTSC from CIDER, an interdisciplinary center of development studies at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. There he was an associate professor of urban and regional development, where he founded and directed LabNa (Laboratorio de Narrativas Urbanas/Urban Narratives Lab) and CiderX (an LGBTQ+ research group). With a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of California Berkeley, Professor Montero is interested in place-based, experimental and inclusive approaches to reimagine economic development and urban and regional planning, particularly thinking from the Global South and from the peripheries of economic development.
Contact Director Sergio Montero
