Graduate Institute of Development Studies


The Graduate Institute of Development Studies was a graduate school in Geneva, Switzerland focusing on development studies. Created in 1961 as the Institut Africain de Genève, GIDS's stated goal was to promote teaching and research concerning international development and to encourage students from the Global South.
The GIDS trained several generations of development activists in Switzerland and in the world and was at the center of a huge international network. Very active in concrete development projects, the GIDS was also known in the francophone world for proposing an alternative and a critical view of development aid and world affairs , as well as for its journal, the Cahiers de l'IUED. It was also among the pioneer institutions in Europe for the intellectual development of the sustainable development perspective. Among its directors were Roy Preiswerk, Pierre Bungener, Jacques Forster, Jean-Luc Maurer and Michel Carton. GIDS was attached to, but independent of, the University of Geneva.
GIDS and the Graduate Institute of International Studies are now integrated in a new institution, since the beginning of 2008, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. The new Institute combines the fields of development and international relations and offers a much wider choice of teaching and research activities. The degree programmes of each previous institution continue to be offered by the new combined institution.

Prominent graduates