With financial support from the Ford Foundation, the Development Studies Committee of the University of Cambridge is hosting an advanced summer programme on rethinking development economics for the seventh time. Last six years' programmes were great successes and we hope to build on them.

This summer's programme will be held at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, between 4 July and 21 July 2007, inclusive. The programme will admit a select group of 25 or so young academics from developing countries, including transition economies, and provide them with lectures, discussion, and research workshops with leading scholars on cutting edge topics in development economics from a number of critical perspectives. The programme will fully finance travel, accommodation, subsistence, and tuition fees for those who are selected.

Background
The failure of various neo-liberal reforms in numerous developing and transition economies to generate long-term growth and reduce poverty have generated such criticism that even the IMF has recently felt obliged to proclaim poverty reduction as its official goal. At the same time, as most dramatically demonstrated in the collapses of the Seattle and the Cancun talks and the impasse in the Hong Kong talk of the WTO, there is an increasing dissatisfaction both in the developing and the developed countries with the emerging neo-liberal global economic order. There are also new trends emerging that suggest a growing challenge to neo-liberal dominance – such as increasing economic weight of China and India, the emergence of alliances among developing countries (IBSA – India, Brazil, and South Africa – and ALBA – Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba – are the most prominent examples), and the leftward shift of many Latin American countries, some of which were the most diligent pupils of neo-liberalism.

If there is an increasing demand for an alternative to this orthodoxy, the supply is not meeting it. The older generation development economists of the 1950s and the 1960s vintage have been, over the last few decades, edged out of most major universities in international centers of academic excellence, especially the major US universities. The situations in most developing countries are even worse. While in these countries there may be more demand for alternatives to orthodox development economics, these countries have even less capability to generate such alternatives. Due to, among other things, resource constraints, researchers and students from developing countries tend to rely on a small number of standard textbooks and the publications from the multilateral financial institutions, which severely restricts their exposure to alternative approaches.

The Programme
The programme intends to fill this important intellectual gap. It will give a select group of 25 or so young academics from developing countries, including transition economies, an opportunity to gain exposure to frontier research undertaken from critical perspectives on key issues in development economics. The teaching will be conducted through lectures, discussions, and research workshops provided by some of the world's leading academics in relevant fields. All travel, accommodation, subsistence, and tuition fees will be paid for by the programme.

Each day of the workshop will consist of two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each session lasts three-and-half hours. The sessions will be mostly in the form of lectures, which will consist of at least two hours of lecturing and at least one hour of discussion with some breaks. There will be three “Research Workshops” on selected topics, which will involve short presentations by a few members of the teaching staff, followed by an open discussion. There will be also a few evening talks, which are more like seminars than lectures (the full list of this is to be confirmed). There will be also informal contacts between students and faculty during lunch, tea and coffee breaks, and possibly some dinners.

The details of the provisional programme is attached at the end of this announcement.

Applications
The applicants are expected to have at least a Master's degree in economics or in relevant subjects with a strong background in economics (e.g., development studies, public administration) and currently be engaged in academic jobs (teaching or research). They are expected to have at least two years' work experience. Some will be chosen from outside academia (e.g., government, private sector, NGOs), if they have the minimum academic qualification and relevant experiences. On average, those who were selected for the last six programmes already had a PhD (or were close to finishing it) and had five years' work experience. All these are, however, basic guidelines, and all cases will be considered on their own merits.

Those who wish to apply for the course should send their Curriculum Vitae, an official transcript (showing courses taken and grades gained) from BA onwards, and one letter of reference from someone who is familiar with their academic work. For students whose main medium of instruction during their education was not English, some proof of English proficiency will be necessary. Results of standard English proficiency tests (e.g., TOEFL or IELTS) will be preferable, but other proof may be also accepted (e.g., a sample of written work in English).

Applications should be accompanied by a covering letter, indicating the applicant's full contact details (including the e-mail address, which will be the main means of communication during the admissions process) and their fields of interest within development economics, to

Dr. Ha-Joon Chang,
Course Director,
CAPORDE,
Development Studies Committee,
17 Mill Lane,
Cambridge CB2 1RX.
United Kingdom.

The application should actually reach Dr. Chang by 30 April 2007, and being postmarked before 30 April is not enough. Please note that we are not able to accept any document faxed or submitted in electronic forms, with the possible exception of the reference letter. Although a hard copy if preferred, the reference can be e-mailed, if necessary, to Dr. Chang at hjc1001@econ.cam.ac.uk. While we will not individually acknowledge the receipt of the documents, we will be happy to confirm the receipt if asked. The successful candidates will be notified of the outcome of their applications by the middle of May, and the rest by the end of May.

March 19, 2007.