The Open University’s Development Studies curriculum equips students to understand, analyse and respond to critical contemporary challenges, such as poverty, inequality and sustainability. Our students explore how key issues, including migration, conflict and violence, climate change, and shifting global power relations, are shaping development processes and what this means for people around the world. We consider how important ideas, such as power, justice, and reparation, can help us to rethink what development means and how it happens.

You can study Development at the OU at undergraduate and postgraduate level. When you study with us, you’ll be studying with students from across the globe, who bring a diverse range of personal and professional experience to our student community. The knowledge and skills you develop will help you to build or consolidate careers in the development sector and a wide range of other areas, such as government, civil society, international organisations, and the private sector, or to pursue further academic study and research.  

You’ll benefit from the OU’s decades of experience of delivering high quality distance learning. You can study flexibly when it suits you and from wherever you are in the world. You’ll always have a dedicated tutor as well as support from other academics.

Our students

Our students have diverse personal, academic and professional backgrounds and interests. Our approach to teaching and learning about global development means we consider issues, case studies, and ideas from all around the world. You can read more about some of our alumni and how studying Development Studies with the OU has helped them to achieve their objectives.

Undergraduate study

You can specialise in Development within the BA (Honours) International Relations (Development)  and the BA Social Sciences (Development)  You will study two Development modules:

• D229 Introducing Global Development: Poverty, Inequality, Sustainability

This Level 2 module introduces the key concepts of poverty, inequality and sustainability and explores them in relation to important contemporary issues in global development, including health, climate change, technological innovation, and debates about ‘decolonising’ development.

• D329 Investigating Global Development: Crisis, Complexity, Change (launching October 2026)

This Level 3 module considers contemporary debates about crisis, complexity and change in Development Studies. We explore topics including conflict and violence, migration, humanitarianism, and social protection. Students are supported to pursue their own interests in the field of global development through conducting an independent investigation.

Postgraduate study

At the Open University, we have a long history of teaching postgraduate Development Studies, reaching students in over 100 countries.

Our MSc Global Development equips students with the knowledge, understanding, and skills to investigate, analyse, and respond to the major challenges of our times. Over three 60 credit modules, you’ll explore key development topics including migration, environmental sustainability, technological innovation, and development policy and practice, including the Sustainable Development Goals. In doing so, you’ll work with important concepts in Development Studies such as power, agency, justice, and transformation. You’ll also conduct in-depth independent research about a development topic of your choice, with one-to-one support from our academics.  

You can also study for a PhD in Development Studies with us. Our doctoral researchers are a key part of our Development community and contribute to wider research networks across the University and beyond.  You can read more about studying for a PhD at the Open University in our Research Degrees prospectus or contact our academics directly to discuss your research ideas.

You can apply for funding to conduct your PhD in Development Studies at the OU through the Economic and Social Research Council funded Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership or the Arts and Humanities Research Council.