About us

Our intellectual vision

Addressing global challenges requires explicit connection between development theory and practice, and our work is organised around these two main themes:

1. Politics of Global Development

A significant focus of our work is on the politics of doing global development. Our researchers are actively involved in collaborations and partnerships with external agencies such as the UN, national governments, and civil society organisations with a focus on governance and accountability; state capability, service delivery, inclusion and exclusion, and ‘whose knowledge counts’. We have strength and expertise in the areas of water, health, gender, food and land, education, energy, climate change and technology.

2. Critical Development Theory

This work is rooted in a long history of critical development studies and the political economy of development. We are no longer specifically focussed on ‘developing’ countries or the ‘Global South’. The interconnected challenges of poverty, inequality and climate change demand global understandings. Areas of interest include contemporary capitalism and neoliberalism; democracy, governance and accountability; trust and morality; power and agency - understanding and challenging power through the lenses of gender and intersectionality; global goals and measuring development; deconstructing north-south binaries, decolonising knowledge and evidence.

Equality and inclusion

As a centre rooted in critical development studies, CGD takes an intersectional approach to equality and inclusion in all our work.  We aim to be consciously reflective of our own biases in shaping our research, teaching and public engagement, and to question and challenge our membership on this.

We want a membership that is diverse across gender, race, ethnicity and class, but we recognise that the structures and judgements of academia, research and the development industry don’t always make this easy.