Short courses

The RSC’s International Online School fosters dialogue between academics, practitioners and policymakers working to improve the situation of refugees and other forced migrants. The course combines the very best of Oxford University’s academic excellence with a stimulating and participatory method of critical learning and reflection.

The School has welcomed participants from 74 countries since it began in its current form in 2021 (click on the map to see more). 

The School is principally designed for policymakers and practitioners working on refugee protection and related issues, normally with several (usually at least five) years of work experience. Participants typically include staff of the main refugee, migration and humanitarian international organisations; staff from refugee, human rights and humanitarian NGOs; and government officials working on refugee protection and related issues. Those from refugee backgrounds who work for refugee advocacy and community groups are particularly welcome.

Participants may also include academics and postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers working directly on refugee and forced migration issues; practicing lawyers and advocates working in refugee and human rights law pertaining to forced migrants; journalists, commentators and activists working on refugee protection and the human rights of forced migrants.

The OPHI Summer School is held annually in different locations around the world. It is aimed at those who are working on, or actively interested in gaining skills in multidimensional poverty measurement, particularly professional staff of national offices of statistics and government ministries that deal with poverty reduction, professionals from international development institutions, academics, and doctoral students. The Summer School is led by OPHI Director, Sabina Alkire, and the OPHI team, including researchers and academics with extensive experience of developing and implementing Multidimensional Poverty Indices (MPIs).

The purpose of the Summer School is to provide a technical introduction to multidimensional poverty measurement using the Alkire-Foster (AF) method, and to share examples of its practical applications. Students develop the skills required to construct and analyse a multidimensional poverty measure and describe its policy relevance and usefulness for analytical purposes. Drawing on Amartya Sen’s capability approach and empirical examples of national and global MPIs, the conceptual and empirical motivation for measuring multidimensional poverty is presented, as well as the full suite of measurement tools.