Dr Nicholas Watts FRSA is Principal Lecturer in the Sociology and Social Policy subject area of DASS. His main focus is social science analysis of environmental issues, and he teaches across DASS and the Department of Law, Governance and International Relations (LGIR).
Nicholas trained in languages, psychology and politics ( BA Hons German and Psychology, with French and Mathematics, Keele University; PG Diploma in Russian, with Distinction, Surrey University; MSc Environmental Psychology, Surrey University; DPhil Political Science Free University Berlin, magna cum laude).
His experience includes teaching 'green'' modules in Environmental Ethics; Environmental Policy; Environmental Sociology; Environmental Political Theory and Politics of Global Environmental Change, as well as more generic social science modules with 'sustainability' content: Comparative Politics; Comparative Social Policy; German Unification and European Integration; Globalisation; Managing Community and Voluntary Sector Organisations; Policy Analysis; Political Sociology; Sustainable Communities(PG). He also supervises undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations on environment- and sustainability-related themes in sociology and politics.
After a spell teaching Social Factors in Planning at UWE (then Bristol Polytechnic), Nicholas spent ten years as a Senior Research Fellow of the Science Centre Berlin for Social Research, developing research interests in the psychology of environmental attitudes and values; mobilisation in new social movements; environmental policy, and green parties. On his return to London, he spent three years as Research Director of the Anglo-German Foundation, and a further period as a Visiting Fellow at Lancaster University (Centre for Study of Environmental Change), and as Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London (Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment.
Since joining London Met (then, UNL) he has developed further interests in the sustainable development of small states, especially capacity for implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean, in the context of engagement with the Commonwealth and the University's Caribbean Studies Centre. He convenes the newly inaugurated Environment and Sustainability Subgroup of the Caribbean Studies Association, and is Education Advisor to the Commonwealth Human Ecology Council, of which he is a trustee.
More locally, in an effort to 'join up the global and the local', he has recently worked on evaluation of implementation of energy policy in partnership with the London Borough of Islington, and has been conducting some training of organisations in sustainable development, in partnership with the London Environment Centre. He represents the University on Islington Environment Forum (the successor to Islington Local Agenda 21), which he presently chairs (see http://www.ivac.org.uk/environmentforum), sits on the Islington Strategic Partnership Environment Theme Group, and is a member of its Commissioning Subgroup. He is interested in both researching and developing the role of universities in promoting sustainable communities, and in equity issues in sustainable development policies. His work with the borough of Islington and local voluntary organisations provides an excellent basis for students doing their projects locally. Currently, he is working to develop work on the role of trade unions in sustainable development, with colleagues from Trade Union Studies, and is exploring the role of public art in promoting consciousness of environmental change.
Recent publications include a Special Issue of the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy , Vol 9 No 3, 2006, The Law and Policy of Biodiversity Conservation in the Caribbean, with Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of California Davis and a chapter in the 2005 Commonwealth Ministers' Reference Book "Progress on WSSD [The World Summit for Sustainable Development]: Raising the profile of the Commonwealth", in the same section as the Prime Minister. Forthcoming publications include a journal article on methodologies for the evaluation of local authority sustainability projects, and a book chapter on Chernobyl and public and elite attitudes to nuclear energy, 20 years on.
Nicholas is a member of the London Diplomatic Science Club, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a trustee of "Connecting Cultures", and was a founding Executive Committee member of the UK Council for Graduate Education from 1994-2004, where he convened the Working Group on International Postgraduate Students (Report online at http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/filesup/IPG.pdf). He has also been a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Education and Human Development (Berlin), and at the Universities of Strathclyde (Department of Government) and Warwick (European Public Policy Institute), as well as at UCL and Lancaster, and has taught at the Free University Berlin and the University of California, Davis.
