DSA Members' news

Queen's Anniversary Prize for OPHI
The University of Oxford was among 22 UK educational institutions announced as winners of Queen’s Anniversary Prizes, for research carried out by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at ODID.

New project on violence against women
Nandini Gooptu is a co-investigator on a new £1.76 million GCRF project investigating the multiple determinants of violence against women in Delhi NCR and Johannesburg. Find out more.

TAKE PART! New project to share methodological learning
Young Lives has launched a new project that aims to share learning on the methodological and ethical challenges of carrying out longitudinal research in low and middle-income countries. Find out more and take part.

Protecting borders, not people
Ruben Andersson and David Keen wrote for Foreign Policy on how outsourcing border control to poorer neighbour countries represents a 'spectacular own goal', not just in humanitarian terms, but also politically.

Exploring refugee belonging
Novelist and academic Dame Marina Warner delivered the 2019 Annual Harrell-Bond lecture, which explored the potential of imaginative 'tale-spinning' in establishing a sense of place and belonging for refugees and forced migrants. Listen to the podcast.

January 2020 marks a new management team at the GDI as Professor Khalid Nadvi becomes our new Managing Director. Khalid takes over from David Hulme who was holding the fort after Diana Mitlin stepped down last July.

In addition to Professor Nadvi’s appointment, Dr Rory Horner becomes our new Research Director, Dr Antonio Savoia our Director of Teaching and Learning and Dr Niki Banks the Deputy Director of GDI. All positions are three-year terms and we wish the new appointees the very best in their new roles.

David Hulme Awarded OBE in New Year’s Honours List
Professor David Hulme, who previously served as the President of the DSA., has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Honours List for services to research and international development.

Ayse Arslan (PhD 2019, supervised by Alessandra Mezzadri) has won the prize for the best PhD dissertation by the Turkish Association of Social Sciences. Her comment was: "I am very honoured and delighted to receive this prize. I view it as also a success for the SOAS community, which I will always feel attached to. Thanks to everyone who created and contributed to the wonderful intellectual and social atmosphere at SOAS and to those who continue doing so."

Alessandra Mezzadri took part in the conference 'Power and Accountability in Global Supply Chain Governance' at King's College, organised by Sanchita Saxena Banerjee (Berkeley) and Liliane Mouan (Coventry) 22-23 november 2019.

Article published in memory of Dr Birney
The journal Democratization has recently published an article on social media and political discussion in China, 'Designing authoritarian deliberation: how social media platforms influence political talk in China'. The authors of this article were working on the piece when Assistant Professor Mayling Birney passed away in September 2017. In appreciation of the benefits they received from all of Mayling’s inputs into the project, the authors included this kind acknowledgement in the published version: “This article is dedicated to the memory of the late Mayling Birney (1972–2017) whose research on voicing opinions in Chinese surveys inspired this research.”

Update from HOD, Professor Ken Shadlen
In November, Professor Shadlen spent two weeks as a Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. While there, he delivered three lectures, and worked on a project with colleagues regarding the relationship between intellectual property rights and levels of profits in the global pharmaceutical industry. Earlier this month, Professor Shadlen participated in the Global Forum on Intellectual Property, Access to Medicines and Innovation, organized by the South Centre and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, in Munich. His presentation was entitled “Responding to the Challenges of Secondary Patents in Pharmaceuticals.”

Exclusive event with Mark Lowcock on humanitarian financing
On Monday 2 December, the Department of International Development hosted an exclusive event with the Head of UNOCHA, Mark Lowcock. The lecture was chaired by Dr Stuart Gordon, and discussed progress towards the United Nations’ vision for better humanitarian financing, lessons learned, as well as identifying how the sector can make further progress towards a more anticipatory approach. Watch the lecture again here.

The Conflict Research Programme Blog celebrates its 1 year anniversary this month! The platform showcases the ongoing research from across our five focus countries covering a range of different themes, including the political marketplace, civicness and identity politics.

Read some of our latest blogs from our 2018 Conflict Research Fellows:

Recycling as bricolage: Training the Police Nationale Congolaise by Michel Thill

Protest movements in Iraq in the age of a ‘new civil society’ by Zahra Ali

The opportunity for local peacebuilding interventions: The case of Kirkuk, Iraq by Dylan O’Driscoll

Today’s Refugees are Tomorrow’s Activists: Transnational civil society and diaspora activism in Iraqi Kurdistan, Somaliland and South Sudan by Yaniv Voller.

DPU's KNOW project at the 4th annual IIHS Research Conference, Urban ARC 'Equal Cities'
As part of the fourth edition of the Annual Research Conference of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, KNOW Investigators will play a core role in presenting 24 papers across six themed panels aimed at exploring and sharing learnings from the KNOW Project.

The latest DPU summerLab series pamphlet from 2018 and 2019 is launched
The DPU summerLab team is excited to announce the launch of the latest DPU summerLab series pamphlet. The pamphlet, edited by Giorgio Talocci and Camillo Boano, comprises a retrospective on the 2018 series and a summary of the 2019 series.

DPU PhD student Tom Aston submits thesis on the political economy of cash transfers in Bolivia
Congratulations to DPU PhD student, Tom Aston, on his successful submission of his thesis entitled 'Redistributing the surplus: Insights from the political economy of cash transfers in Bolivia (2005-2014)'

Project by DPU's Catalina Ortiz, Giovanna Astolfo and Camillo Boano funded by the British Academy
The project on Living Heritage as tool to prevent Spatial Violence in Yangon has been funded by the British Council as one of eighteen new research projects looking to generate policy-relevant insights on preventing violence and promoting peace

An international Urban Equality agenda: Members of DPU's KNOW participate at UCLG World Congress
From the 11th-15th of November 2019, investigators from DPU's KNOW project attended the United Cities and Local Government (UCLG) Congress in Durban, South Africa.

IDS is looking for a Chair of the Board of Trustees

IDS Director highlights strengths of DFID and warns against merge with the Foreign Office.

New online course to strengthen capacity of Transparency International project managers worldwide
Our e-learning team has begun the creation of an online course to strengthen the confidence and capability of Transparency International Chapters and Secretariat to undertake effective Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning of projects and programmes for anticorruption. The course will be launched in early 2020 in English, French and Spanish.

CIDT supports Royal National Lifeboat Institution to improve their management of international projects
CIDT are supporting the RNLI International team to strengthen their capacity for project cycle management for international development by providing a bespoke toolkit and staff training.

CIDT support Project Design planning to save lives from drowning in Bangladesh
In November 2019, CIDT’s Rufsana Begum facilitated a two-day project design workshop for the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The aim of the workshop was to facilitate the project design of Project Bhasa Phase 2, ensuring a high-level analysis is integrated into the logframe and to strengthen the skills and knowledge on project cycle management tools.

Open University creates course to help aid workers fight abuse
The free Safeguarding Essentials course has signed up thousands of students since its launch on the Humanitarian Leadership Academy’s global learning platform. Read more…

International development prominent in ‘outstanding’ research achievements recognised by OU
Jude Fransman, Alessandra Marino and Koula Charitonos are winners in the OU Research Excellence Awards 2019. Read more…

Building a BRI network at the OU
Lorena Lombardozzi outlines an Open University workshop exploring a range of issues relating to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and invites colleagues to join a new network connecting experts in the different regions and across topics relating to the BRI. Read more…

All the world’s a stage when international development meets Shakespeare
Development Policy and Practice (DPP) has contributed to a project led by Shakespeare’s Globe to provide teacher development in China. Read more…

‘Our call is for more creative and visual ways of sharing data, rather than dense text’
Jo Vincett has developed an illustrated resource known as ‘refugee comics’ to build public awareness about the mental health damage to people detained with no time limit in UK immigration removal centres. Read more…

Open University partners Ministry of Education in Ghana to promote the effective teaching of practical science
The OpenSTEM Africa: Ghana programme will bring experiential learning to 148 of Ghana’s lowest performing Senior High School. Read more…

NRI and IFPRI are developing and promoting a Risk-Contingent Credit product for smallholder farmers at risk of drought in Kenya, bundling weather index insurance and agricultural credit together based on long time-series rainfall data. See here.

As of January 2020, Dr Jonathan Fisher has taken on the role of Head of Department, succeeding Professor Fiona Nunan who had been Head of Department from 2014.

Congratulations to Professor Nic Cheeseman, Dr Susan Dodsworth and their colleagues for winning the President's Medal of the Market Research Society (MRS), one of the organisation's most prestigious awards.

Contributions sought for Routledge Handbook on Livelihoods in the Global South, edited by Fiona Nunan, Clare Barnes and Sukanya Krishnamurthy. Find out more here.

In May, SIID hosted a number of events on the theme of decolonisation:

SIID PGR Conference & Annual Lecture

Earlier in May we welcomed over 30 students attending the SIID Annual Postgraduate Conference. This event was organised by MA/MSc and PhD students from the University of Sheffield and was attended by postgraduates studying at Universities in Tanzania, China, Norway, Portugal, UK, Sweden, Germany and Hungary. In it’s 10th year, the topic of the conference was ‘Decolonising Development? Challenges, Innovations and Practices.’ This event coincided with the SIID Annual Lecture and we were delighted to welcome Professor Uma Kothari to deliver a lecture on: "Decolonising Knowledge and Forging Solidarity: Disrupting colonial representations, narratives and imaginaries". More details can be found on the SIID website.

Research Ethics: Developing Best Practice for Researching in the Global South

More than 40 researchers at different career stages attended this two day workshop at the University of Sheffield over 20th - 21st May. The workshop consisted of eight facilitated break-out sessions for group work. A range of topics were discussed and part of the workshop was recorded as material will be edited for teaching purposes. If you are interested in hearing more please get in contact with the workshop organizer Dr Daniel Hammett. More details on the SIID website as well.