Our research partnerships examine how to tackle deeply entrenched inequalities that lead to social and economic injustices.
Our work draws attention to the needs of people living in chronic poverty, identifies how religious minority groups are discriminated against, and investigates how heritage can help to build social cohesion. We have a long track record in gender and development, with a current focus on finding ways to counter the anti-feminist backlash.
Our findings shed new light on tackling inequalities, inform government and donor policy and enable activists and community groups to develop new ways of working.
Quand la formation professionnelle ne débouche pas sur un emploi
12 May 2026
Centre for Social Protection
Working to mainstream social protection in development policy and encourage social protection systems and instruments that are comprehensive, long-term, sustainable and pro-poor.
Learn more
Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice
A six-year programme of work aiming to create new knowledge of the backlash against gender justice, to enable the co-creation of more effective and mutual ways of resisting it.
Learn more
Chronic Poverty Advisory Network
A network of researchers, policy makers and practitioners across 17 low- and middle-income countries focused on tackling chronic poverty and getting to zero extreme poverty and deprivation.
Learn more
Sustaining Power: Women’s struggles against contemporary backlash in South Asia
Research on the strategies and mechanisms that women use to retain power and sustain gains in women's rights in South Asia.
Learn more
Urban equity
Our work on towns and cities focuses on crucial topics such as displacement and migration, local governance and the impact of humanitarian interventions.
Learn more
Disability
Building empirical evidence about the concerns and perspectives of people with disabilities, especially in contexts of poverty in middle and low-income settings in the global South.
Learn more
MA Poverty, Policy and Development Practice
Our Master’s in Poverty, Policy and Development Practice helps you gain the interdisciplinary knowledge and cutting-edge skills to engage with the research, design, implementation and assessment of national and international efforts to get to zero poverty.
Learn more
MA Gender and Development
Study with IDS to gain the skills required to participate effectively in gender- and development-related research, policy-making and programme implementation.
Learn more
Explore our research
Find out more about our work in social and economic justice.
Sign up to our newsletters
Keep up to date by registering for one of our newsletters.
Ce blog est disponible en français. Vocational and technical education is often praised because of its usefulness to young people finding immediate employment and its integration with local labour markets. But in West Africa, formal…
May 2026
Amid several initiatives to reset the agenda and forge new global partnerships for development cooperation, we need to remember what was learned in the past and reorientate towards the agendas and needs of people living…
May 2026
Aimen Bucha is Head of Programming and Research at Saida Waheed Gender Initiative (LUMS) and an IDS alum (MA Development Studies, class of 2015). She recently visited IDS in her role as a researcher on…
May 2026
IDS MA Development Studies student and Careerak founder, Aya Abou Ghalyoum, recently took part in the Startup Sussex Competition winning second prize. In this blog post, she shares how she stepped out of her comfort…
May 2026