Our research on governance, power relations, participation and citizen engagement, informs change processes in pursuit of social justice and social change. With power and politics central to our analysis, we support the generation of new evidence that contributes to improved processes for good governance, citizen engagement, empowerment and accountability.
We pioneer new ways of working with governments, communities, activists and academics, to understand the complex relationships and processes that exist across states, markets, and citizens, and between formal and informal institutions, to tackle issues such as digital inequalities, women’s participation and empowerment, decentralisation and local governance, rapid urbanisation, migration, taxation and domestic resource mobilisation, food security and hunger and nutrition. These draw on our extensive expertise in complex approaches to how change happens. Through our research and policy partnerships we are also bringing new insights on the role that rising powers and emerging economies such as China and Brazil have in relation to global governance and tackling development challenges such as sustainability and poverty. Our world-renown participatory research has a particular emphasis on systematic social exclusion facing women, people living in extreme poverty, people with disabilities, slaves bonded labourers, indigenous peoples and others. We advance cutting edge methodological development in action research, participatory visual methods, participatory mapping, participatory statistics, participatory Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) amongst others.
In alignment with the ‘leave no one behind’ framing of the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development, the PMA programme is working with groups of people living in poverty and marginalisation to strengthen processes of citizen-led accountability.
The International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) provides research evidence that supports developing countries in raising domestic revenues equitably and sustainably, in a manner that is conducive to pro-poor economic growth and good governance.
In a world focused on stopping Covid-19, I’ve watched as many of the diseases already largely ignored by governments and scientists have been pushed further into the shadows. This is despite the fact that they kill, disable, disfigure and debilitate hundreds of millions of the most...
This paper reviews the existing literature on Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (ODAN). The review was commissioned as a background paper for a performance evaluation of the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition programme (GODAN).
Congratulations Winter Graduates!
You have achieved amazing things in extraordinary times and you should feel incredibly proud.
287 IDS students from more than 55 nations graduated this winter.
Regretfully, we have had to postpone our January 2021 graduation ceremony due to Covid-19. But,...
The Institute of Development Studies has appointed Dr Anabel Marin to lead its rapidly expanding research on business, markets and states in development. With the relationships between business, government and civic society evolving at pace, this is an increasingly important area within...
The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) has been ranked as best international development policy think tank in the 2020 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report.
This is the second consecutive year that IDS has topped the ranking, putting us above Brookings Institution and the German...
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the limitations of conventional approaches to epidemic preparedness and response that privilege state-led, centralised control plans within a health security paradigm. The indirect social, economic and health impacts of public health measures have exacerbated...
Pastoralists are some of the most marginalised people on the planet, but they have much to teach us all. Pastoralists make a living from livestock on extensive dry and montane rangelands across the world, continuously living with and from uncertainty.
Like agrarian societies everywhere,...
As the unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues, there is a need to robustly support vulnerable communities and bolster ‘community resilience.’ A community resilience approach means to work in partnership with communities and strengthen their capacities to mitigate the impact of the...
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed long-standing social inequalities and vulnerabilities, with the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups bearing the greatest health, social, and economic burdens. Beyond documenting these vulnerabilities, there is a need to mitigate them and support the...
This report looks at trends in conflict and instability in the Indo-Pacific region, focusing on climate change effects and a number of civil liberties. The Indo-Pacific region is both highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and already facing significant security risks and challenges,...
State-citizen interactions are moving online, even in fragile, conflict and violence-affected settings, with people using social media platforms to enhance accountability relations. This helps raise the issues and voices of the poorest and more marginalised segments of the population. But will a...
Behind the positive messages from large-scale environmental initiatives can lie some devastating consequences for politically and economically marginalised people.
We have seen another year of mounting evidence that, as the UN secretary general said in a recent speech, ‘the state of the...
In an extraordinary time of challenge and change, we use more than 50 years of expertise to transform development approaches that create more equitable and sustainable futures. The work you do with us will help make progressive change towards universal development; to build and connect solidarities for collective action, locally and globally. The University of Sussex has been ranked 1st in the world for Development Studies for the past five years (QS World University Rankings by Subject).