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.”
Congratulations to Departmental Lecturer Francesca Lessa, who has been highly commended in the O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards 2021.
Dr Lessa was highly commended for her work improving routes to justice for victims of transnational human rights violations in South America.
Dr Lessa's research focuses on the victims of Operation Condor, the covert cooperation between military dictatorships in South America in the 1970s to silence political opponents in exile. Her work has sought to bring justice and accountability to the victims of such transnational human rights abuses, which, because they involve more than one state, have historically been difficult to investigate. In particular, she has compiled a database of information relevant to the cases of hundreds of victims of these crimes which has had a significant impact on subsequent trials.
You can read more about this work in the latest issue of our alumni magazine here.
The O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards, supported by the University of Oxford’s ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, recognise and reward social scientists whose research has achieved excellent economic and social impact.
The O2RB partnership brings together the University of Oxford with the Open University, University of Reading and Oxford Brookes University.
The other Highly Commended academics are:
The news follows the earlier announcement of the overall Winners of the Awards:
The Highly Commended awardees will join the overall winners in a celebration of social sciences research impact at the O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards ceremony on 19 October 2021, live-streamed from Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History: https://www.socsci.ox.ac.uk/o2rbawards