Areas and projects
Research Areas within IDPM
IDPMs' research is driven by the academic and policy-oriented activities of individual researchers, and by the activities of multidisciplinary groups of staff and research students with interests in specific fields.
These clusters provide a flexible and evolving structure for research and over time they have shifted their focus in response to new priorities and interests. The current clusters are:
- Poverty, Inequality and Well-Being
- The bulk of the work clusters around: poverty dynamics; cross-disciplinary poverty and inequality analysis; the conceptualisation of poverty and well-being; the relationships between growth, inequality and poverty; and power relations and the politics of poverty and poverty reduction. The work of the Brooks World Poverty Institute and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre are central to this group's work.
- Governance, Institutions and Human Security
- Work in this area involves: the roles of civil society in development; NGOs, social movements and their roles in fostering development alternatives; the relationships between economic governance and development; and the relationships between conflict, governance and development dynamics.
- Environment and Development
- Research is rooted in the critical analysis of the relationship of rural livelihoods with sustainable use of natural resources and the political economy of management of natural resources in developing countries. Thematically we have particular strengths in studying the social impacts of conservation, water governance and livelihoods, and the socio-environmental conflicts surrounding extractive industries.
- Social Theory and Development Histories
- Research engages theoretically with core concepts in contemporary social development: the politics of participation; social exclusion; gender and race; social capital and political economy; social networks and the developmental state.
- Enterprise, Technology and Finance
- Research involves macroeconomic policy, privatisation, competition and regulation; enterprise performance and competitiveness covering the impact of policy reforms (trade and industry) and the role of global value chains; technological innovation and policy; and development finance.
- Development Informatics
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Research includes information and knowledge management; design and implementation of computerised information systems; e-government and e-commerce in developing countries; development of IT organisations and industries; mobile telecommunications development; and ICTs and climate change. The group plays a major part in the University's Centre for Development Informatics (CDI), which researches the role of information systems in developing countries.
- Organisational Change for Development
- Work includes human resource management and development; public management and public sector reform in developing countries; management of change in development settings; management of small and medium enterprises; organisational behaviour; employee and manager attitudes and behaviour and is drawn together through IDPM’s new research Centre for Organisations in Development and Development (COD), established in 2007.
Each of these groups brings together research students and staff with common interests, and forms the basis for subject specific research seminars and workshops and new research proposals.
Research Centres within IDPM
In recent years the Institute has also established or contributed to the work of a number of research centres that provide a fertile environment also for postgraduate research.
- Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI)
- Centre for Development Informatics (CDI)
- Centre for Organisations in Development (COD)
- Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC)
- Global Urban Research Centre (GURC)
- Improving Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth (IPPG) Programme
For examples of current PhD projects being supervised at IDPM see: