Why poverty research in Manchester?
Manchester has traditionally been a centre for the creation of ideas and knowledge that have profoundly influenced global patterns of poverty and well-being.
As the world's first industrial city, Manchester contributed to processes that have ultimately led to greatly improved levels of human well-being, although in their early period these processes were associated with horrific deprivation and exploitation - as evidenced by Engels' path-breaking studies of poverty in working-class Manchester.
In the post-war period, the University gained a global reputation for research on social and economic change in developing countries, crowned by Sir Arthur Lewis's Nobel Prize for research on development economics, and by the work of scholars such as Peter Worsley, Max Gluckmann and Teodor Shanin.
In more recent times the University has extended its reputation for policy relevant research through the work of its Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), Global Poverty Research Group (GPRG) and research by academics in the School of Environment and Development (SED) and the School of Social Sciences (SoSS). These activities entail major research partnerships with universities and research institutes in the UK, Bangladesh, India, South Africa, Uganda and West Africa. They have been supported by major grants from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Department for International Development's (DFID) largest single investment in social science research. In recent years findings from University of Manchester researchers have influenced the Commission for Africa, bilateral and multilateral development agencies and African and Asian governments.
View some of the recent Manchester research findings.
The University thus has a strong existing base to build on. BWPI provides the institutional framework for researchers at the University to make a major contribution to critical and cross-disciplinary analyses that deepen understanding of poverty and inequality, and provide guidance to make poverty eradication policies more effective.
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