Dina Abbott is full Professor of Development Geography at the University of Derby. She is an active researcher who has published extensively in journals and books. Her research expertise is on gendered urban and rural poverty, including the impact of climate change, and she has worked in India, the Gambia, Senegal, Morocco and East Africa. Her special interest also extends to the methodological, philosophical and ethical implications of research. She was most recently a major contributor to the interdisciplinary European Union Erasmus project, ‘The lived experience of climate change’ where she worked closely with Gordon Wilson. Her personal contribution to this project was to create on-line Masters teaching modules on sociological approaches to the subject and interdisciplinary methodologies for investigation into the ‘lived experiences’ of climate change. She was also co-editor of a journal special issue arising from that project and is an editorial board member of online African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. Gordon Wilson was until his retirement in December 2011 full Professor of Environment and Development, and is now Emeritus Professor, at the Open University. He retains an active research interest in social learning and its potential to generate knowledge with respect to environmental issues in a development context. He has published extensively on the topic, including a Reader where he was the major editor and a book (co-authored with a colleague). He led the interdisciplinary European Union Erasmus project, ‘The lived experience of climate change’, where he pioneered the intellectual development of the concept through on-line Masters teaching modules, and as co-editor (with Dina Abbott) of a journal special issue.