The early-bird discount for those attending DSA2023 applies to both online and physical attendees, as well as for those on concession. If you’re not yet a member of the DSA, it’s worth signing up before you register, because you’ll receive a generous discount on the conference fees. If you’re from the global South, the DSA, the Journal of Development Studies and the University of Reading have put out a call for funding. To find out about eligibility and to apply, follow the links on the conference website.

PhD candidates have until 6 April to submit an abstract and apply for a place at one of sixteen DSA 2023 PhD masterclass sessions providing in-depth tailored feedback on your research. To submit, you need an abstract of 500 words and be available for the session on 27 June. If accepted, you’ll also need to submit a paper in May.

And how do we change it? This was one of the common discussions throughout the DSA’s Politics and Political economy study group conference in Manchester in January. Read the different responses from Ingrid Kvangraven, Kamna Patel, Sara Stevano and Indrajit Roy.

Sign up for the DSA webinar exploring how NGO programming, interventions and theories of change can best make use of academic research, including academic research from the global South, in informing work addressing global inequality and injustice. Our panel includes Naomi Hossain, Beth Chitekwe-Biti from SDI and BOND’s Sandra Martinsone and will take place on 11 May.

Lisa Eitinger from the Department of International Development at LSE is the winner of the DSA’s Masters Dissertation Prize. The dissertations from Sidonie East (IDS Sussex) and Misbah Haqani (IGHD, Queen Margaret University) were highly commended. Find out more about the prize and the winners.

Contribute your expertise to the UK Parliament’s POSTnotes; timely research briefings on emerging scientific issues for policy makers. Current calls for briefings include AI, climate change, energy planning, environmental impact of food protection, protected marine areas, and the One Health approach to climate change.

Highlights include:
* ground-breaking evidence from Ethiopia that children from households with social protection have better cognitive skills
* new modelling on the medium-term macroeconomic impact of the COVID pandemic in low-income countries
* innovative YouTube channels launched by refugees in Nairobi are helping them gain income and a sense of belonging
* analysis of social media shows how politicians use emotion to mobilise support
* microfinance in developing countries.

IDD researcher David Cobley has revised the book Disability and International Development. The title is a major contribution towards making the human rights of persons with disabilities a reality: especially the right to be included in international cooperation. The book provides both a critical reading of disability and development theory and is immediately applicable in the concrete work of policymaking and program implementation.

New thinking in sanitation includes the invisible burden of care work: women as producers of sanitation infrastructures; hidden everyday experiences in gendered sanitation infrastructure and insights from the 2022 world toilet day.
Urban outputs include: reflections on five decades of change in China, the state in urban development in the Middle East and global and local approaches to inner-city change in Santiago.

Highlights include:
* decolonising international political economy through dependency theory
* contracting welfare services to social organisations in China
* comparing Indian systems of workplace accommodation with China’s famous “dormitory labour regime”
* a new measure on elite incomes around the world.

Jonathan Pattenden has edited a special issue in Journal of Agrarian Change and drafted an editorial titled, “Progressive politics and populism: Classes of labour and rural–urban political sociology” which looks at the the potential for progressive politics to take hold in rural farming communities.