Katarzyna Cieslik is a senior lecturer in Global Development at the Global Development Institute, specializing in social and environmental sustainability transitions.  She has a PhD in Economics and Management from the University of Brussels and a Master’s degree in International Development from the University of Amsterdam.

Katarzyna’s research focuses on the interactions among society, technology and environment, and their implications for sustainable development in the Global South. Through critical political economy frameworks, she investigates the role of technology in both exacerbating and alleviating the tensions between work/livelihoods and environmental conservation.

Topics of interest:

• Natural resource governance and its relationship to sustainable livelihoods, with a particular focus on collective action;
• The impact of technological transitions (including ICT4Agr) on rural livelihoods.

Katarzyna pursues an actively international and interdisciplinary research agenda: she has been a research associate at Cambridge University, a visiting researcher at Yale University’s Agrarian Studies Centre, and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wageningen. She has conducted research in Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Burundi. Her research is highly practice-oriented; she cooperated with the UNICEF Innovation Labs and a number of local NGOs in Africa (National Union of App-based Transport Workers in Nigeria, FVS Amade Burundi, FARA, CIP in Ethiopia), South America (CONDESAN, AGAPE), and Asia (Practical Action Nepal, Mountain Societies Research Institute).

Past and current collaborative projects:

• Platformisation of rural Africa: dependency, disposession and data in the platform economy. UMRI Pump-priming award, 2025 - ongoing
• Women Farmers in the Sharing Economy: Can Online Agricultural Platforms Reduce Gender-based Barriers to Mechanisation? - with Wageningen University (Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Research Group), University of Ghana (Department of Agricultural Extension) and Cavendish University of Zambia (Department of Communication); 2023 – ongoing
• Decent work and youth livelihoods: public policy challenges for employment creation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Can digital platforms create decent jobs? – Cambridge Philomathia Social Science Fellowship and Research Grant (2019 – 2023)
• Collective action through connective action: what is the role of ICTs in managing environmental public bads in Ethiopia? - with Wageningen University (EVOCA program) and Centro International de la Papa (2017 – 2019)
• Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation: Mountain Environmental Virtual Observatories in Peru, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia and Nepal – with Wageningen University, Imperial College London, Bahir Dar University, CONDESAN, Practical Action Nepal, Mountain Societies Research Institute