Opinion

Please follow the science (but not too much!)

Earlier this week, we heard that UK politicians insufficiently challenged the Covid-19 scientific advice coming from our Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). However, we were also told that they can’t deal with complexity and may have misunderstood the advice. Some of this...

James Georgalakis

Transforming lives in a year of challenge and change

This has been an extraordinary year for global development. The Covid-19 pandemic has continued to cause global disruption, transforming how people live and organisations function. The crisis revealed the scale of injustices in many areas and at many levels and, at IDS, reinforced the critical...

Melissa Leach

Online disinformation: a weapon to silence feminists

In the last five years, online spaces have become central for the popularisation and organisation of urban-based feminist movements in Pakistan. It has also, unfortunately, become a source of vilification and backlash against them.

Pastoralism, climate change and uncertainty: report launch and exhibition

Ian Scoones

Queuing for petrol in Bath and Beirut

Last week, queues for petrol across the UK snaked out of the stations all the way to the Cabinet.  Panic meetings of politicians attempted to resolve the crisis, as customers had to wait, sometimes for hours, to get access to fuel.  Many petrol stations didn’t have fuel at all.  Videos of...

Neil McCulloch

Cultural mixing and mixed identities – How to protect cultural rights for all

Our cultural lives and rights are all connected and complex. To paraphrase the Haitian poet Jacques Stephen Aléxis, we are all the children of “an infinity of cultures.”  Cultures are hybrid and “involved in one another”, in the words of Palestinian scholar Edward Said. If we are to...

Translation to reach a global research audience

Over the past few years at IDS, colleagues in the Knowledge, Impact and Policy cluster have been considering how to best meet an increasing need to produce high-quality translations of research publications when budgets are limited. In an effort to improve the effectiveness of this process, we...

Beth Richard

Alice Webb

Rejuvenating the IDS building imagery

In March 2020, the IDS building fell silent after the worldwide outbreak of Covid-19. Following long months of lockdowns and uncertainly, in early 2021 we began to see the building reopening and our community being able to return to being in the same space. In the conversations about...

James Andrews

The politics of control in Zimbabwe’s Covid times

Ian Scoones

The Food Systems Summit: an opened-ended story

Assessing our own gender equality and social inclusion credentials

Taking action on climate change at IDS

Climate change is one of the most urgent and challenging issues faced globally and, at the 2019 IDS staff retreat, a discussion on the concerns shared by many prompted launch of the IDS Climate Action Taskforce. The focus was on how the institute could take action to reduce its impact on...

Imogen Bellwood-Howard

Martin Gardner