ADAPTED is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network project funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme for the period 2021-2024. Under the umbrella topic "Eradicating Poverty: Pathways towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals" it brings together five European Universities, important internationally active European development organisations and think tanks and six African partner universities. Coordinated by the IEE, 15 Early Stage Researchers are working on their PhD projects.

As part of the activities of the UA Ruhr Graduate Centre the research project "Political Authority in Transnational Governance Arrangements: Regulation through Public and Private Labour, Social and Environmental Standards in the Asian Textile and Apparel Industry" aimed at analysing patterns of interaction of public and private regulation of labour, social and environmental standards in the textile and apparel industry in Bangladesh and Cambodia. Funding for the cooperative project between IEE and INEF has been provided by German Mercator Research Center Ruhr (MERCUR) for the period of two years.

As part of the BMBF funded project "GlobE-Urban Food Plus - African-German partnership to enhance resource use efficiency in urban and peri-urban agriculture for improved food security in West African cities" the IEE implemented a sub-project that aimed at assessing the economic impacts of innovations for improving soil fertility and irrigation in urban and peri-urban agriculture. More specifically, the sub-project looked at the welfare implications of introducing biochar as a soil amendment and safer irrigation options from the perspective of urban producers and consumers.

In 2008 the IEE together with its partner institutions at UWC established the the South African-German Centre for Development Research (CDR) as a platform for cooperative study programmes and research. The MA in Development Studies, the Master in Public Administration, the MA in Development Management (until 2023) and PhD options in Development Studies and Public Administration form part of the centre. Until the end of 2023, CDR has been supported by DAAD as part of the African Excellence Programme which has been funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.

Two years after a highly successful start of the international master programme in Development Management, the programme was first offered at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town, South Africa, supported as part of the DAAD programme line "German Study Programmes Abroad" funded by BMBF.

The first intake of the interdisciplinary master programme in Development Management (MADM) arrives in Bochum marking the beginning of a unique international study programme which combines theoretical knowledge with provision of practical tools and knowledge for managing development projects. From the very beginning, the MADM has been supported by DAAD through provision of a limited number of scholarships for students from the global South.

The DFG-supported Research Training Group brought together 12 Early Career Researchers and their supervisors under the thematic umbrella "System efficiency and system dynamics in developing countries" 

The IEE was founded one year after the foundation of Ruhr University Bochum as research institute that was part of the Economics department. In 1989 it was transformed into a central scientific unit of Ruhr University.