The Johns Hopkins Center on Global Poverty supports research using qualitative methods to tackle complex challenges in international development. As a “qualitative poverty lab” we nurture research using ethnography, interview methods, historical methods, and the like.
We adopt a problem-solving approach and see our work as complementing quantitative approaches. Through our promotion of qualitative research we seek to reshape the research landscape and eventually the practice of international development.
This year we are conducting a speaker series on the future of foreign aid. The current international development establishment has been criticized by scholars for many reasons, and is now under political attack. How should we rebuild it? Join us for a year-long conversation culminating in a panel on May 5, 2026, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C.
We are also pleased to announce a small-grant program for graduate students and scholars from developing countries, and we continue to provide paid summer internships for Johns Hopkins undergraduate students to work with DC-area foreign aid organizations.
We have working groups on sustainable development, income insecurity, artificial intelligence, and other topics. To get involved, please sign up.