The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Diletta Lauro has won this year's Best Thesis Prize for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies.
Each year, the Examiners for the MSc have the discretion to award a prize for the best thesis submitted by one of the students on the course. Dilatta Lauro won the award for her thesis on ‘The underlying conceptions of membership of anti-deportation campaigns in the United Kingdom’, which was written under the supervision of Dr Matthew Gibney.
Diletta uses a study of the Roseline Akhalu case to explore the underlying conceptions of political membership within UK anti-deportation campaigns. The Examiners felt it was an ambitious and original piece of work which uses the novel angle of community-based articulation to investigate concepts and practices of citizenship in the context of deportation. In addition to setting out a clear research question, Diletta showed a sound understanding of a very thorough range of political theory literature and used appropriate methodology to derive original conclusions. The work is analytically sophisticated and empirically compelling throughout, and the Examiners felt it makes a strong contribution to forced migration studies and recommended it for publication as a journal article.