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Research Programs
What constrains a particular country from growing? What is the best way to empower poor people to participate in markets, communities, or politics? How can social services work more effectively? How can sustainable development balance human needs with the capacity of the earth’s life support systems?
Citizens and governments around the world are facing these critical research questions which are motivated by the widening gaps in income, educational opportunities, healthcare access, clean environments and others between rich and poor countries. Seeking and applying answers to these questions is the focus of the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University, a research hub that advances understanding of global development challenges.
CID's core research programs focus on Growth, Empowerment, Micro-Development and Governance, Sustainability Science, Entrepreneurial Finance, Migration, and our Mexico partnership.
Under the leadership of director Ricardo Hausmann, the Center has identified four primary objectives that connect directly to four of our core research programs:
- to change the way in which growth strategies are designed;
- to empower the economically disenfranchised;
- to improve social service delivery and governance; and
- to promote sustainable development
As a university-wide center, CID draws upon faculty, staff, and researchers from many schools and disciplines -- from economics and public health to education and physics -- engaging directly with governments and policy makers to inform policy decisions and increase prosperity in all regions of the globe.
CID research in these core areas is disseminated through a number of different and important channels:
- CID manages a Faculty Working Paper Series with research articles by CID faculty affiliates.
- CID provides an opportunity for Fellows and Graduate students to post their research on the CID Fellows’ and Students’ Working Paper Series.
- CID works closely with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education program on two courses: the Cutting Edge of Development Thinking and Leading Economic Growth.
- CID engages the next generation of development leaders through inputs to the Kennedy School curriculum and field opportunities for Masters and PhD level students. It has close ties to the Master’s of Public Administration in International Development.
- CID hosts conferences on a variety of topics including, in the past, the Global Empowerment Meeting, conferences on migration, and a Growth Commission.
- CID Faculty and Fellows are regularly profiled in both domestic and international media, quoted in both technical and policy articles, and do their own writing for both op-eds and blogs.
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