Director's Office

ISDC, as part of a consortium of partner institutions, is proud to announce it will be hosting a new conference: Fragile Lives.

Evidence for human development, food security, and peace in poly-crises Fragile Lives 2024 is an international expert conference on the use of rigorous, scientific evidence for the development of knowledge-based policy interventions in fragile, conflict-affected and under-developed settings. It will focus specifically on how poly-crises shape individuals, institutions, and interventions at the micro-level and the […]

ISDC Director Prof. Tilman Brück will be giving a KOSMOS on February 15, 2024, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM at the Senate Hall of Humboldt University, Berlin. Under the theme “Towards Zero Hunger,” Prof. Brück, an expert in nutrition security during crises, will explore the pivotal role of economic research in overcoming global hunger and […]

The Annual Workshop of the Households in Conflict Network (HiCN) will take place in Berlin on 01 and 02 October 2024. Details on the workshop and the call for papers will be published once available. Add this event to your calendar. Since 2004, the Households in Conflict Network (HiCN) has fostered academic research and learning […]

The Life in Kyrgyzstan (LiK) Conference is an annual academic conference that complements the LiK Study. The 2024 LiK Conference will take place on 10 and 11 October in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This year’s keynote speakers are Dr. Asel Doolotkeldieva from George Washington University and Professor Martin Petrick from the Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. The deadline for submissions […]

Trust and Development in Conflict-Affected Economies Since 2005, the Households in Conflict Network (HiCN) has fostered academic research and discussion on the micro-level experiences and consequences of conflict in its annual workshop. The 2023 edition will take place at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, under the […]

ISDC is conducting a desk review of global policies, practices, and standards on child safety and digital space.

The involvement of small-scale farmers in markets is crucial to alleviate poverty in low- and middle-income countries. In this study, we examine the determinants and welfare implications of export participation for smallholders in Kyrgyzstan, utilising household-level panel data for the period of 2010-2013 and employing fixed-effects panel estimations. Our research reveals that the decision to […]

This paper investigates the relationship between state-based conflict and entrepreneurship. From a survey of the existing literature, we formulate two hypotheses: (1) state-based conflict has a negative association with productive and opportunity-motivated forms of entrepreneurship, and (2) a positive association with unproductive and necessity-motivated forms of entrepreneurship. We test these hypotheses by drawing on several […]

It is more important than ever that academic research informs and positively impacts policy. To develop academic research and policy solutions for the crisis in Ukraine, HiCN, NEPS, and UNU-WIDER are seeking papers for a two-day workshop in Helsinki, Finland, in early May. A full-day academic workshop (tentatively on 8th May) hosted by UNU-WIDER will […]

We survey efforts that track food security in Africa using phone surveys during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phone surveys are concentrated in a few countries mostly focusing on a narrow theme. Only a few allow heterogeneous analyses across socioeconomic, spatial, and intertemporal dimensions across countries, leaving important issues inadequately enumerated. We recommend that the scientific community […]

How can women be better mobilized to participate in consultative processes that would likely improve public services provision? The Women’s Action Committees and Local Services Metaketa round seeks to answer this question by coordinating five research projects in diverse contexts that assess how the act of participation affects women in these settings and how the […]

As Communications Manager, Dorian is responsible for the websites and social media presence of ISDC and developing ISDC’s larger communications strategy. Dorian received his Master’s Degree in International Political Economy from the University of Manchester in 2018 and has since been active in non-profit projects, funded by different German federal ministries. His research included reports […]

How does ethnic inequality shape victimization in violent conflicts? Our case study of the 2010 conflict in Kyrgyzstan tests whether communities with higher ethnic inequalities in education experienced more intense displacement. We find that local inequality in education between Kyrgyzstan’s ethnic majority and its largest minority robustly predicts patterns of forced displacement, controlling for alternative […]

Definitions of fragility are focused at the level of the state, but this should not be considered to suggest that individuals with heterogeneous endowments experience a state of fragility in the same way. Nor does it suggest that all subregions of a fragile country exist in this state. In turn, experience of fragility varies not […]

This report presents findings from a comprehensive study on the interplay between nutrition and education in Kyrgyzstan, focusing on the impact of the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program. The study examines the evolution of nutrition status, the influence of nutritional practices on child health and education, and the overall effects of the program. Through a […]

When looking at important indicators of well-being, there is extensive evidence that levels of life satisfaction differ between ethnic groups, such that minority groups by and large tend to report lower levels of life satisfaction than majority ethnic groups. A growing body of literature has begun investigating the relationship between an individual’s community and their […]

Dr Damir Esenaliev is a Senior Researcher at ISDC. His research interests include quantitative microeconomic research related to social cohesion, labor markets, inequality, rural development, and intergenerational mobility. He has published in Journal of Comparative Economics, Economics of Transition, Social Indicators Research, and International Journal of Psychology. In addition, he has a number of working papers and reports published at […]

Professor Tilman Brück is the Founder and Director of ISDC. He is also Professor for Economic Development and Food Security at Humboldt-University of Berlin and Team Leader – Development Economics and Food Security at IGZ near Berlin. Tilman is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the „Households in Conflict Network” (HiCN) and the Principal Investigator […]