The internal displacement of populations is a major challenge in today’s world, eliciting global concern about how to protect internally displaced persons (IDPs) and resolve their displacement. Yet, despite raising far-reaching theoretical and practical questions for key contemporary debates around aid, development, migration, sovereignty, rights, citizenship, identity and societal change, knowledge of this issue is highly fragmented and dispersed across both academic and policy circles.

Established in 2019, the Internal Displacement Research Programme (IDRP) consolidates a longstanding line of research at the RLI by promoting and facilitating wider research on internal displacement, including but not limited to policy-relevant research. It aims to:

  • Raise the profile of research on internal displacement in academic and practitioner circles
  • Support, disseminate and share current and ongoing work by researchers in this field
  • Connect research in this field with that in cognate areas, including refugee studies
  • Bring new researchers to the field and develop new cross- and inter-disciplinary work
  • Promote and support research capacity in countries affected by internal displacement

The IDRP Research Affiliate and Senior Research Associate networks bring together established research specialists in this field. The IDRP directs other project work on ‘Supporting Regional IDP Research Networks’ and ‘Health and Internal Displacement’.

Revitalising IDP Research: A 'state of the art' review

Ala Al-Mahaidi, Léa Gross and David Cantor

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Key publications and other outputs

Key institutional activities

  • Launched Researching Internal Displacement platform (created 2021)
  • Launched IDRP Internal Displacement Working Group (created 2020)
  • Launched IDRP Working Paper series (2020)
  • Launched research collaboration with the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Internal Displacement (2020)
  • Workshop on ‘“Revitalising the IDP Field”: 20 Years of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement’ (RLI, London, 2018)