Our antecendents date to the Institute for Social Research established in 1954. In 2004 we celebrated our 50th anniversary by hosting a major international conference on South African development challenges.

As part of a larger re-organization of academic schools in 2012, the then ‘School of Development Studies’ was incorporated into the School of Built Environment and Development Studies together with the schools of Community Development, Architecture Planning and Housing.

A large percentage of the reports produced here, including the most recent publications series (Research reports and Working Papers) is available online at British Library of Development Studies Digital Library http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/1662 These can be downloaded at no charge under a Creative Commons License.