Global Development

The Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development is dedicated to the study of large global problems, including poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, existential risks, inequality, and war.

The goal of this research programme is to achieve a quantitative understanding of the world’s largest problems and to communicate this understanding in a way that is both accessible and understandable.

Since there is a wide range of relevant problems, the team is very interdisciplinary and includes environmental and social scientists. Additionally, due to the programme’s ambition to communicate complex data and research as clearly as possible, the research team works closely with experts in web development, design, and communication.

The research programme aims to provide a long-term perspective on today’s global problems and highlight how the world has changed over the last decades and centuries. The researchers are also particularly interested in how historical problems that seemed insurmountable at the time were solved. The programme's focus on historical data and historical achievements can offer confidence and guidance for tackling the problems the world is facing today.

Studies published by the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development include peer-reviewed publications on global health, poverty, labour markets, income inequality, economic growth, agriculture, and climate change.

The research team at the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development regularly publishes their work on the open-access website Our World in Data. This award-winning online publication, founded by Max Roser in 2011, is dedicated to presenting data and research on the world’s largest problems, ensuring broad accessibility and engagement. The platform is completely open and the data and research are made available as a public good. The published articles, data, visualisations and tools are all open-source under a permissive Creative Commons licence.

Over the course of the last decade, Our World in Data has developed into a publication with a wide reach. Several million people visit Our World in Data every month. Media outlets around the world, including The BBC, The Guardian, The Economist, and The New York Times, cite the publication frequently.

The Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development plays a central role in the success of Our World in Data. The essential research that supports the publication is the work of the programme's researchers; while the partner non-profit organisation Global Change Data Lab (GCDL) publishes and maintains the platform. This partnership of researchers, data scientists, engineers, web developers, designers, and communicators ensures the platform is not only authoritative but also engaging and accessible to a global audience.