News
IDPM-Led Consortium awarded ESRC research network on 'Rising Powers and Global Standards'
The ESRC has awarded £70,000 to a research consortium led by IDPM aiming to establish a collaborative cross-country research network on international standards in the context of economic globalisation.
The network, led by Dr Khalid Nadvi, will engage a significant number of researchers from the University of Manchester's School of Environment and Development, School of Social Sciences and Manchester Business School, as well as leading academic institutions across the globe to develop this new research agenda. It will also work closely with international policy actors from global policy institutions, such as the the ILO and UNIDO, and the World Bank, as well as key international civil society organisations.
The award signals the ESRC's recognition of IDPM and SED's excellence and potential in setting up international research networks on key contemporary international development issues, attested also by a similar award under the same scheme for a research network on Poverty Reduction in 'Emerging Middle' Countries led by Professor David Hulme, also of IDPM.
The Rising Powers and Global Standards Research Network
The global economy is being radically transformed by countries like China, India and Brazil. These countries - the so-called Rising Powers - are likely to shape the 21st century in many ways.
One aspect of this transformation is the ways in which they have begun to influence the rules that govern international trade and global production, in particular global standards concerning the specifications of products and services and the processes by which goods and services are produced and delivered.We are, for example, increasingly aware about the food we eat and how it came to our plates, or whether what we wear implied sweatshop labour and poor working conditions.
For the developing world, compliance with standards is increasingly critical for market access. Yet, the gains from compliance with international standards - especially for workers and poor producers - remains an area of dispute and contestation.
Rapidly growing trade between the Rising Power economies, their expanded domestic consumer markets and the emergence of leading international firms from China, India and Brazil collectively raise questions on how global standards will be shaped in the future, who the key drivers will be in this process, and what will be the outcomes for small producers and poor workers in the developing world.
Understanding these processes and their policy implications are important if we are to avert a 'race to the bottom' with declining labour and environmental standards.
The Rising Powers and Global Standards (RPGS) Research Network will define a new research agenda to address these questions. It will assemble an international group of highly experienced researchers from the UK, the developed and developing world as well as the Rising Power economies. Through international workshops, embedded visiting fellowships, detailed literature reviews and the production of concept notes, the network will formulate a comparative research programme and associated methodologies to address this theme. It will also seek to actively disseminate this research programme to the wider academic and policy communities through a dedicated web-site for the network and through a series of international and regional meetings.
Follow this link for more information on the project (PDF, 46 KB).
21 November 2009