ODID Oxford July 2025 digest
Highlights
Young Lives launched their new Research Hub on Climate Change and Environmental Shocks on Friday 6 June, as part of the University of Oxford’s three-day Right Here Right Now Global Climate Summit, hosted in partnership with UN Human Rights and the International Universities Climate Alliance.
Young Lives’ longitudinal evidence has directly informed the new WHO Guidance on Mental Health Policy and Strategic Action Plans launched in March 2025.
The Oxford SDG Impact Lab has published its first Impact Book. This shows how the Lab went from start-up to scale-up; what makes its approach different; and a behind-the-scenes look at its programmes, people and projects.
Dr Helidah Ogude-Chambert and Dr Uttara Shahani both won Teaching Excellence Awards. These annual awards from Oxford University’s Social Sciences Division celebrate exceptional contributions to education and teaching practices by colleagues across the division at all career stages. Find out more
Blogs
In a blog first published on Oxfam’s From Poverty to Power, Young Lives’ Kath Ford explains what it takes to persuade policy makers to make real progressive change. Read it here
For the ODID blog, Sabina Alkire (Director, OPHI) writes on ‘Reforming the global financing development framework to serve the world’s poorest – opportunities for the FFD4 Conference in Seville’.
Sneha Krishnan and Omar Shweiki write for the ODID blog about ‘Academic Partnerships with Palestine: A guide for UK universities launched at ODID’.
New research in Kakuma refugee camp by Vittorio Bruni and Olivier Sterck shows that recent aid cuts and delays have had dramatic impacts on food consumption, food insecurity, and overall welfare, while also straining local food and credit markets. Read their VoxDev blog.
Media
In an article titled ‘Towards equalized AI: Insights from Oxford Professor Fu Xiaolan on democratized intelligence’, Alice Ho (DPhil candidate, ODID) writes for CGTN about a presentation made by Professor Fu at the Oxford China Forum convened at Oxford University’s Said Business School.
Amogh Dhar Sharma joined the Grand Tamasha Podcast to talk about political parties’ newest campaign tactics and the changing election landscape, drawing on his new book’s findings. Listen here
Events podcasts and videos
In this year’s Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture from the Refugee Studies Centre, Professor Diana Allan gave a lecture on ‘Living Archives: Palestinian Displacement in Lebanon’. Listen to the recording here.
FMR launch events on video
- FMR75: ‘Dangerous Journeys: Saving lives and responding to missing migrants and refugees’. Watch the video in English, Arabic, French or Spanish.
- FMR74: Financing displacement response in a changing world. Watch the video
RSC Public Seminar Series
- ‘Ruling Emancipated Slaves and Indigenous Subjects: The Divergent Legacies of Forced Settlement and Colonial Occupation in the Global South’, with Professor Olukunle Owolabi (Associate Professor of Political Science, Villanova University). Listen to the podcast
- ‘Refugees at work: Ending exploitation, advancing justice’, with Emily Arnold-Fernández (Refugee Law Initiative, University of London, and Forced Migration Review) and Yusra Herzi (PILnet). Listen to the podcast
- ‘Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State’, with Dr Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky (Assistant Professor of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara). Watch the video
Publications
- Clement Amponsah (2025) ‘Resilience Praxis as a Function of Coloniality: Rethinking Modernity, Resistance, and Participation in Adaptation Governance’, Antipode, https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.70035.
- Amankwa, M.O., Amponsah, C., Adusei-Asante, K. et al (2025) ‘‘Rhetorics or business as usual?’ A systematic review of the realities of Australian aid localisation efforts in the Pacific region’, International Politics, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-025-00712-x
- Corneliu Bjola and Markus Kornprobst (2025) ‘Studying Tech Diplomacy—Introduction to the Special Issue on Tech Diplomacy’, Global Policy, https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.70035.
- Kabiri Bule and Loren B Landau (2025) ‘Mobility, diversity, & speculative racial capital: navigating inclusion and exclusion in an African urban gateway’, Third World Quarterly, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2025.2507330.
- Loren B Landau (2025) ‘Mobile space-times and the rescaling of political community’, chapter in Handbook on Politics and Society (Shireen Hassim and Anna C Korteweg, eds), Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 350-364.
- Uttara Shahani (2025) ‘Bonded citizenship: Caste, Partition, and the prevention of exit’, Modern Asian Studies, 1-28, doi: 10.1017/S0026749X25000034.
- Amogh Dhar Sharma (2025) ‘Political Finance and Patronage Behind Disinformation: Evidence From India’s Election Campaigns’, International Journal of Communication, 19: 2342-2360, https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21938.
- Amogh Dhar Sharma (2025) ‘True Costs of Misinformation| Political Finance and Patronage Behind Disinformation: Evidence From India’s Election Campaigns’, International Journal of Communication, 19, 2342-2360.
- Weishen Zeng (2025) ‘Green Energy and State Power: The Case of Zhanatas Wind Power Project in Kazakhstan’, Development and Change, https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12880.
- Juliana Quigua Chinchilla, Marta Favara and Alan Sanchez (2025) Young People’s Mental Health in Unprecedented Times, Young Lives Research Report.
- Laura Blythe (2025) ‘UK-France Cooperation on Border Control: Efficacy, Deterrence and Human Rights’, RSC Working Paper No. 142.