About IOB
The Institute of Development Policy (IOB) is a multidisciplinary institute involved in academic teaching, scientific research and service to the community in the area of economic, political and social aspects of development policy.
IOB has an academic staff of more than 50.
We offer three Master programmes, short-term training courses and a PhD programme.
Our research is oriented to development as a multi-level and multi-actor phenomenon, with research lines focusing on respectively the local, national and international levels of development. Policy advisory work is closely connected to these research activities.
IOB networks with other European development institutes through EADI and CERES, and actively cultivates several institutional partnerships in the South.
A brief history of IOB
IOB is the result of the merger of two previously existing smaller development institutes, the College for Developing Countries and the Centre for Development Studies. This bipolar origin can be understood in light of the history of the University of Antwerp. In 1965, in the framework of legislation on ‘university expansion’, two higher institutes of commercial sciences created in 1852, one public, the other run by the Jesuits, were given university status. The fact that RUCA (Rijksuniversitair Centrum Antwerpen) and UFSIA (Universitaire Faculteiten Sint Ignatius Antwerpen) were created side by side rather than as one university must be seen in the Belgian ‘pillarised’ context of the day, with ideological brick walls separating lay and catholic communities.