The Institute of Development Research and Development Policy - in German 'Institut für Entwicklungsforschung und Entwicklungspolitik' (IEE) - was established as an important new research centre in 1966, only four years after the foundation of the Ruhr-University Bochum. From the outset, research at the IEE has been characterized by an interdisciplinary approach to the study of economic, political, and sociocultural development in the countries of the South. In its early years, the IEE was primarily a research institute and had a particular focus on the Islamic world.
At the beginning of the 1990s the IEE laid the foundation blocks of its new interdisciplinary approach to teaching in the fields of development policy and management. A first step was the development of its three year interdisciplinary PhD programme 'System Efficiency and Dynamics in Developing Countries', which started in the spring of 1995. The program was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and terminated after the maximum funding period of three intakes.
It is now substituted through the new international English-language PhD program in International Development Studies (PhD IDS). The PhD IDS started in 2007 and was implemented by the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy on behalf of the Faculties of Geography, Law, Social Science, and Economics.
Starting from winter 2000, the IEE offers an international English-language program: The Master of Arts in Development Management. Since May 2002 the program is also offered at UWC, first as part of the DAAD initiative 'German Programs of Study Abroad' and now as part of the DAAD funded 'South African - German Centre for Development Research and Criminal Justice'.
In addition, the institute cooperates with research institutes and universities in Germany and abroad. Links exist to institutions in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Marocco, Namibia, Poland, Russia, the Republic of South Africa, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Zambia and Zimbabwe as well as to Euopean and European/African university networks.
The Institute
