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.”
Crowdless (previously Keep Your Distance) provides real-time data on how busy essential places such as supermarkets and pharmacies are so that people can choose the best place and time to visit. The free app uses Google Maps and Google Places data alongside crowd-sourced information from users, who can report how busy the venues they visit are.
Crowdless was developed by social enterprise Lanterne in just four weeks. Lanterne, co-founded by Alex with Sebastian Mueller and Yohan Iddawela, was originally set up to create an app to help people navigate safely in conflict areas.
‘Our plans to roll out our core product were heavily disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak’, Alex said. 'We were keen to see what we could do to help in the current circumstances, and our Chief Technology Officer Sebastian came up with Crowdless. We think it will be extremely useful for people who need to travel to shops and grocery stores, but are trying to do social distancing effectively to protect themselves and the wider population.’
The team worked with Adapt, a UK-based social enterprise that specialises in data security, data privacy and data ethics to ensure user privacy. The app does not collect any personal identifiable data and a person’s current location is used only to display the most relevant search results.
Lanterne has received funding and support from the European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre United Kingdom, the European Union’s Big Data Corridor, Oxford Foundry, London School of Economics Generate, Santander Universities and Yoti.