School of Development Studies

The School of Development Studies (also known as ‘DEV’) is one of the Schools at the University of East Anglia. It has an international reputation and currently consists of about 30 teaching faculty, 15 associated researchers, 250 undergraduates, 120 taught postgraduate and 80 PhD students.

The School of Development Studies reflects the subject area of ‘development’ in being highly interdisciplinary and it applies economic, social, political and natural sciences to the study of international development with special emphasis on human, social and environmental change and poverty alleviation. DEV explores theories of development through ideas such as sustainability, equity, resilience, allocation, power and justice, plus how understandings are expressed through policy - and they do this at the local, regional and global scale.

A single department

The School of Development Studies is a single, coherent University department dedicated to the study and teaching of international development. It is not made up from different university departments. Apart from the few joint degrees, all degrees are taught by DEV’s own academic staff. With this identity, the School of Development Studies is very committed to inter/multi-disciplinary research and excellence in teaching. This innovative approach has been developed over a forty year period, bringing together researchers and students from different disciplines (economists, social scientists, natural resource scientists) into close-knit and overlapping research areas and teaching teams. They are particularly proud of their research reputation and of their direct engagement with communities, individuals and policy in developing countries – and bring back this experience directly into their teaching. This relationship between teaching, research, practice and policy advising is achieved because the School of Development Studies teaching faculty also work for the Overseas Development Group (ODG), an in-house charitable organisation that handles the research, consultancy and training undertaken by DEV staff.

Some of the activities that go on in the School of Development Studies are:-
• Seminars run all year long. Members of the public are welcome.
• There are approximately 17 Masters programmes available.
• There are about 5-6 variations of Bachelors programmes.
• DEV runs a PhD programme where students study in depth a topic with support from two supervisors.
• High quality Research is undertaken funded by a large array of global donors and funders.
• With the assistance of ODG, 1-2 week training programmes are delivered.
• Professionals and development academics join for sabbaticals.
• Consultancies and policy advisory missions are provided for.

Research areas

Faculty in the school work in one or more of the three main research areas, which are:-
• Social and Human Development (with three sub-themes; Gender and Development; Education and Literacy; Health, Policy and Practice)

• The Political Economy of Development (with three sub-themes; Globalization and Development; Conflict, Governance and Development; Growth, Inequality and Poverty Reduction)

• Livelihoods and Environmental Change (with three sub-themes; Understanding Environmental Change; Livelihoods; Environmental Governance and Management)

External links

* [http://www.uea.ac.uk The University of East Anglia]
* [http://www.uea.ac.uk/dev Development Studies at the University of East Anglia]
* [http://www.uea.ac.uk/ssf The Social Sciences Faculty at the University of East Anglia]