Impact - Institute of Development Studies

Over nearly 60 years, IDS has played a key role in development thinking, policy, and practice around the world.

A girl with long dark hair in a pink long-sleeved top leans over to write on a flip chart . — A girl contributes to a participatory research group in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo credit: CLARISSA

Our research, teaching and action on topics as diverse as social protection, agricultural livelihoods, and pathways to change has influenced generations of development professionals.

Our work is creating impact by:

Changing awareness and understanding of complex social, environmental and economic issues, helping to shift attitudes around particular issues.
Building and strengthening networks and communities of practice that can enable research to be produced, shared, and connected with policy and practice.
Strengthening the capacity of institutions, individuals or systems, empowering communities and creating the conditions under which knowledge can be turned into action.
Influencing the creation or implementation of policies or practices which can stimulate more effective development.

Stories of impact

Showing 13–24 of 77 results

Impact Story

Positive outcomes from our professional development learning programme

We provide world-class professional, practitioner and organisation-wide learning for people working in development. Our action-oriented, collaborative training and learning are offered in three broad types: Specialist short courses for development professionals – for example,...

7 August 2023

Impact Story

How IDS research and expertise is influencing policy

How evidence is generated, shared and used underpins our drive to increase equity in knowledge production. We challenge knowledge hierarchies and explore ways to think more deeply about evidence and impact. Over the past year, that impact could be seen in IDS research influencing policy and...

1 August 2023

Impact Story

Collaborating and knowledge sharing through our International Initiatives

The IDS International Initiatives are spaces for researchers, governments and civil society from diverse locations to share new perspectives on tackling global challenges. Below is a snapshot of some of the activity that has taken place over the last twelve months. Brazil The IDS Brazil...

28 July 2023

Impact Story

Evidencing the case for equitable, locally-based pandemic responses

Ahead of next year’s WHO-led treaty on pandemics, our Pandemic Preparedness project and Covid Collective initiative - both examples of what can be achieved through agile partnering and collaboration - have underlined the need to make responses equitable, ethical and...

24 July 2023

Impact Story

Fostering equality, diversity, and inclusion

We worked closely this year with the employee-led Reward Review Working Group to establish fair and transparent pay and reward structures. An external consultancy (ECC) was commissioned to support IDS to develop clear structures, policy and processes around pay and progression, and that work is...

20 July 2023

Impact Story

Partnerships for Covid-19 response exceed expectations

Two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the more complex impacts of the disease are becoming clearer. Rising to these multidimensional challenges, IDS partnerships have gone above and beyond expectations in pursuing social science research to inform policy and practice. Despite the constraints...

1 September 2022

Impact Story

Gleaning global lessons from the margins through participatory methods

Participatory research and inquiry is all about ‘putting the people who are experiencing the problems at the heart of finding the solutions’. As interest in participatory methods has surged, IDS this year produced a highly acclaimed and comprehensive handbook aimed at social science...

30 August 2022

Impact Story

Making community engagement central to global health research

As health systems around the world grapple with providing care within the ‘new normal’ of Covid-19, IDS has stepped up collaboration with a major funder of global health research to make community engagement central to research on health inequities and complex health problems. The UK-based...

23 August 2022

Impact Story

New insights on accountability and empowerment in conflict settings

The IDS-led international research programme, Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) concluded in 2021 with a powerful final report, ‘Against the Odds’, which shares new insights on how accountability, governance and citizen empowerment play out differently in fragile and...

18 August 2022

Impact Story

Fostering future leaders in a time of uncertainty

The impacts of Covid-19 on teaching and learning at IDS have been both challenging and radical for our postgraduate and professional learners and faculty. Making the formal decision to teach online for the 2020–21 academic year was not easy. Substantial preparation and support went into...

11 August 2022

Impact Story

Nurturing positive leadership through scholarships

In the past year, O’bai Conteh made an important contribution to addressing sexual and reproductive health in his home country Sierra Leone. O’bai’s studies at IDS were supported by the IDS Graduate Scholarship. O’bai graduated from the IDS MA Gender and Development in 2018 and is...

29 July 2022

Impact Story

Influencing a rethink of donor policy on microfinance

How best to help the world’s poorest people escape from poverty is being reappraised thanks to findings from the widest-ever review of evidence on the impact of financial services conducted by IDS and the University of East Anglia (UEA). Microfinance and microenterprise interventions...

25 July 2022