18th Development Dialogue Virtual Conference in October 2022

The 18th Development Dialogue (DD) conference "Doing Development Differently" will be organized virtually on the 17th and 18th of October 2022. ADAPTED Early Stage Researchers Ahmed El Assal and Petronilla Wandeto who are based at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) are part of the conference organizing committee.

The DD conference is an annual academic conference organized by Ph.D. researchers of the ISS at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The dialogue aims to stimulate multi-disciplinary, reflective, and collaborative discussions that bring together researchers worldwide. The conference provides a platform for doctoral candidates and early career researchers engaged in different fields of development studies to share their work, exchange ideas, and discuss how their research relates to global development struggles.

Interested PhD candidates are required to fill out this online application and submit their abstracts by Sunday, April 17th, 2022. For more information about the past Development Dialogue conferences, please visit the official conference website. For any queries, feel free to contact the organizing committee at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

More information here: Call-for-Abstracts-DD18.pdf

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Notwithstanding the constraints posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the IEE team took the challenge and organised the long-anticipated in-person first annual meeting of the ADAPTED network. Alongside ensuring that participants observed the SoPs for preventing COVID infection, the team delivered a high-quality virtual mode of participation by supervisors and partners who could not attend the physical meeting. The meeting brought together 15 Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs), their supervisors, key staff of the ADAPTED research network and a representative from the EU.

The IEE is home to four of the 15 ESRs, and below, they share their reflections on the event:

The 1st annual meeting of (the EU funded European Joint Doctorate) ADAPTED will take place from 6 - 12 February 2022 in Bochum. For the first time the consortium will come together for an in-person meeting including the 15 early stage researchers, their research directors, practice partners and the management team. In addition, advisory board members and supervisory team members from the African partner universities will join virtually. The detailed programme can be found here: ADAPTED_1st-Annual-Meeting_Programme.pdf

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The new edition of the RUB’s biannual scientific magazine Rubin was published recently. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are in the spotlight. Certainly, the IEE does a lot of important work in these fields. Thus, we are proud that our projects and members are broadly represented. Prof. Löwenstein shares key insights into the EU-funded project ADAPTED, which focuses on the eradication of poverty, in an interview. Britta Niklas’ and Dr. Anne Siebert’s contribution introduces the South African-German Centre for Development Research and the Master programme in Development Management. Moreover, Prof. Kaltenborn’s research on public-private partnership is presented in an article. Enjoy the read!

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On September 28-30, 2021, members of the 12 DAAD Centres of African Excellence, further experts from related institutions as well as colleagues from the DAAD joined an Online Research Fair called 'Past and Future Research for Inclusive and Sustainable Development‘, organized by the Centre for Development Research ZEF, Bonn University, and the DAAD West African Centre for Sustainable Rural Transformation. Colleagues from both partners of the South African-German Centre for Development Research, the University of the Western Cape and the Ruhr-University Bochum, contributed in several sessions.

Overall, roughly 80 participants joined for the exchange and discussions of research and scientific projects taking place at the different Centres in order to explore potential synergies, particularly with a focus on opportunities within the new „Round Table Africa“ initiative of the German Government. Participants enjoyed a rich and inspiring programme with lots of opportunities to get into discussion with colleagues about cross-cutting themes and developed bases for further joint projects.

Collaboration between the African Centers of Excellence and beyond will be further enhanced through the new DIGI-FACE platform. This project, funded by the DAAD, aims at supporting and facilitating networks of higher education teaching, learning, and research on the African continent. The launch of the platform will take place on October 1, 2021.

Britta Niklas, Anne Siebert, and Ruth Knoblich adding research topics to the digital pinboard

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This week, the 10th UN-Research Colloquium on "The UN and Resources" takes place at the IEE. It was jointly organised by the Working Group on Young UN Research in the United Nations Association of Germany (Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen, 'DGVN'), the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) and the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV) of the Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB).

Under the topic "The United Nations and Resources", the role of resources (material and immaterial) for the stability of the UN as well as the global regulatory framework and peace between states, but also the resource focus of transnational corporations will be examined. In doing so, the colloquium wants to shed light on "traditional" resources such as money, manpower, natural resources / land resources, water, land, but also on often forgotten resources such as political influence, trust, good governance and other soft power elements. Especially big global challenges like the current COVID-19 crisis raise questions about the distribution and value of these very diverse resources.

The IEE's managing director Prof. Wilhelm Löwenstein and the IFHV's executive director Prof. Pierre Thielbörger will open the programme with keynote speeches and set the scene for the upcoming panels.

The annual colloquium was brought to the RUB by Henrike Roth (IEE) and Timeela Manandhar (IEE, IFHV), who will welcome all speakers to Bochum - with some participants joining digitally.

They are also participating as authors and speakers, Henrike Roth with a paper on "Economic Growth, Poverty, and Globalisation – A Theoretical Explanation for Development" and Timeela Manandhar with a paper on "The UN Guiding Principles – Human Rights Due Diligence of Corporations".

Programme of the Colloquium (German) as PDF file

 

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10th UN-Research Colloquium:
"The United Nations and Resources"
8 - 10 October 2020 at the Ruhr-University Bochum

The colloquium is organized by the Working Group on Young UN Research (AG Junge UN-Forschung) in the United Nations Association of Germany (Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen, hereinafter DGVN) in cooperation with the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) and the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV) of the Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB).

Under the topic "The United Nations and Resources" the role of resources (material and immaterial) for the stability of the UN as well as the global regulatory framework and peace between states, but also the resource focus of transnational corporations will be examined. In doing so, we want to shed light on "traditional" resources such as money, manpower, natural resources/land resources, water, land, but also on often forgotten resources such as political influence, trust, good governance and other soft power elements. Especially big global challenges like the current COVID-19 crisis raise questions about the distribution and value of these very diverse resources.

Deadline for abstracts: 1st August 2020

Please find more information in the full Call for Papers: English / German

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The IEE as coordinator has successfully submitted a proposal for the implementation of a European Joint Doctorate (EJD) on the topic "Eradicating Poverty: Pathways towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals" (ADAPTED). The proposal has been evaluated within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Innovative Training Networks (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2020) and reached a top result of 98%.

With a funding volume of 3.9 m. Euro, ADAPTED has a duration of four years and will start in February 2021. 15 PhD researchers will join the IEE and our partner institutions in Europe (International Institute for Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, Kooijmans Institute for Law and Governance of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Economics, Boğaziçi University, and Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne) in autumn next year. Additional partners are the Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungs-GmbH, Agence Française de Dévelopement, Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes, and six universities from five African countries.

More information will follow soon. See also the website of RUB for detailed information in German.

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Accompanied by DAAD’s Secretary General Dr. Dorothea Rüland, RUB’s Rector Prof. Dr. Axel Schölmerich and Chancellor Dr. Christina Reinhardt visited the DAAD-funded South African-German Centre for Development Research (SA-GER CDR) as part of an information visit of management members of German universities.

At the South African-German Centre for Development Research, they met our DAAD lecturer Ruth Knoblich, SA-GER CDR Steering-Committee member Prof. Julian May as well as further staff members and alumni of the centre.

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After successful defence of her doctoral thesis on Tuesday, 19 November 2019, IEE member Christina Seeger has been awarded the degree of a Doctor (Dr. rer. oec.) of the Faculty of Economics at RUB.

Prof. Dr. Manuel Frondel, Christina Seeger, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Löwenstein

Her thesis with the title "Trust and consumers' willingness to pay for safe and certified safe vegetables in West African cities: A comparative analysis of Tamale, Ouagadougou, Bamenda, and Bamako" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Löwenstein and Prof. Dr. Manuel Frondel. Prof. Dr. Helmut Karl chaired the oral exam.

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