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.”
Tom Scott-Smith is Associate Professor of Refugee Studies and Forced Migration, fellow of St Cross College and Course Director for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration. He specialises in the ethnographic and historical study of humanitarian relief and its impact on the lives of refugees.
He holds an MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford, and was previously Lecturer at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol and Senior Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford.
Tom's work on humanitarianism has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed scholarly journals, including American Ethnologist, Social Studies of Science, Development and Change, Third World Quarterly, and the Journal of Refugee Studies. His book on the history of humanitarian nutrition, entitled On an Empty Stomach: Two Hundred Years of Hunger Relief, is published by Cornell University Press.
Before coming to academia, Tom worked as a development practitioner in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tom Scott-Smith is Course Director for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. He teaches courses on The Anthropology of Forced Migration; Research Methods in the Study of Forced Migration; and The History and Politics of Humanitarian Aid.
Tom is interested in supervising doctoral research on the history and politics of humanitarian action, the ethnography of humanitarian institutions, the everyday life of aid workers, and the study of technological objects used in emergencies. He has particular expertise in the nutrition and shelter sectors, non-governmental organisations, and the politics of humanitarian principles.
Humanitarianism, technology, refugees, nutrition, shelter, NGOs