- Transformations to sustainability and justice
- Multiple knowledge systems
- Relational thinking and practice
- Qualitative methods
- Adaptive management
- Monitoring and evaluation
Simon West is an Associate Researcher with Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Simon researches the social and political dimensions of environmental management and policy. His research focuses on the effects of different framings, lived experiences, types of evidence, and knowledge systems on management and policy processes.
He adopts collaborative, community-centred and qualitative approaches to research and has worked on monitoring and evaluation in Indigenous Land and Sea Management in northern Australia; adaptive management in Australian national parks; participation and learning in UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in South Africa and Australia; contested knowledges in small-scale fisheries in the Philippines; and everyday climate adaptation in Alaska, USA.
He has particular interests in relational philosophies and practices, transformations to sustainability, and transdisciplinary research and knowledge co-production, and his work is situated at the intersections of Sustainability Science, Conservation Social Science, Human Geography, Science and Technology Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Interpretive and Poststructural Policy Analysis.
Simon is currently co-lead investigator on a 2022-2025 Swedish Research Council Formas-funded project exploring the effects of gender on conservation practices in Australia and South Africa, and lead investigator on a 2024-2027 Formas-funded project focusing on contested knowledges relating to the Xylella plant pathogen in southern Europe.
Simon is on the Editorial Board of the journal PLOS Sustainability and Transformation and was a contributing author to the Transformative Change Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
