A growing number of emerging economies challenge conventional understandings of development. Much is to be learnt from their experience of change. Our multidisciplinary doctoral training programme focuses on the dynamic countries of the global South where wealth sits alongside persistent poverty and precarity, and traditional aid is no longer significant. Now global inequality sits alongside stagnation, populism, and the challenges of climate change, and our critical PhD programme explores how to address this.
MPhil/PhD awards
Qualification(s):
MPhil
PhD
Duration: 3-4 years full-time or 6-7 years part-time.
PhD Development Studies with reference to Emerging Economies in International Development Institute at King's College London.
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Our supervisors accept original projects that explore how development processes occur in different ways and at different scales and levels, from global to local to familial. Our PhD students come from many different countries and go onto pursue academic, research or policy careers in the private sector, government and non-governmental organisations.
The work of our PhD students seeks to understand theoretical, empirical or methodological gaps in their chosen area. Current research topics include 'Race, rent and the politics of housing in West London', "Zero Hunger Britain - learning from Brazil?" and nation and elite building through educational pathways in the Global South, in the context of Indonesia. Previous work looked at how to break away from primary exports and into producing value-added products; the challenges of producing effective, equitable and transparency governance; state and market entanglements in health; equitable development of business groups; policy development for inclusive growth; and questions of gender justice.
All our research students also join one of our six research groups and are expected to play an active role in that community of interest.
- Inequalities, Vulnerabilities, and Development Policy
- Climate, Environment, and Uneven Development
- Global Capitalism, Power and Uneven Development s
- Politics, Injustice, Creative Contestations
- Technology, Innovation and Economic Development
- Global Production, Finance and Labour
Training opportunities
Under the guidance of your supervisor, you are encouraged to acquire disciplinary training relevant to your research question. King's is a member of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded Doctoral Training Partnership, which offers a range of training opportunities for our PhD students.
You are also encouraged to develop an enquiring appreciation of what other disciplines may bring to your field of study. Staff expertise includes political science, development economics, political economy, sociology, anthropology, management studies and development studies.
There are also some opportunities for registered PhD students to gain experience as paid teaching assistants on our International Development BA.