Focus and Scope
The IDS Bulletin is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal focusing on global challenges and themes in international development. In continual publication since 1968, it has a well-established reputation for intellectually rigorous articles developed through engaged research, debate and reflection presented in an accessible manner that bridges academic, practice, and policy discourse.
Bringing together reputable cutting-edge thinking from academics, donors, non-governmental organisations, practitioners, and policy actors in special thematic issues, the IDS Bulletin has become one of the leading journals in the development field, read by a multitude of diverse audiences. In general, it occupies a unique position by bringing this research and thinking to a broad combination of policy, research, and practitioner audiences in development and related fields. It aims to contribute to critical thinking on how transformations that reduce inequalities, accelerate sustainability, and build more inclusive and secure societies can be realised.
Each issue is widely promoted through IDS’s communications routes, often with special launch events and webinars. Fully Open Access, articles from current and past IDS Bulletins are viewed and/or downloaded an average of 800,000 times a year.
A 2025 survey amongst readers found that the IDS Bulletin is highly valued for its trusted quality research, the relevance of content and innovative thinking, its unique position linking research, policy and practice, and its Open Access policy with no fees for readers or for authors.
Journal keywords: international development, Open Access, peer-reviewed, academic, practice, policy, innovative thinking, diversity, diamond model.
Journal Information
Ownership: The IDS Bulletin is owned by the Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK.
Business model: The publication model is diamond, not-for-profit, with institutional funding covering publication costs so that authors are not required to pay an Article Processing Charge. Note that instructions for authors are supplied directly by Issue Editors during the issue commissioning process.
We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Most articles are in English and other languages are increasingly supported.
As the IDS Bulletin is fully Open Access we do not offer subscriptions/print copies or any advertising opportunities; nor do we offer waivers. See Open Access Policy for further information.
Format: Every issue is a Special Issue.
Issue Editors are from IDS and partner organisations, with occasional open calls. Articles for the IDS Bulletin are commissioned by the Issue Editors, drawing on the contributors’ expertise and experience.
Editorial production is by the IDS Publications Team, working to academic publishing industry standards (see Publication Ethics and Peer Review Process).
Issues are published three to four times per calendar year and comprise mostly research articles.
Content: While development studies is the overall focus, articles also bring in wider perspectives from across the social sciences and other fields as they address global challenges. IDS strongly encourages a diversity of contributors from around the world, including early career researchers, as well as policy makers and practitioners whose work and experience is relevant to an issue theme.
Contributors should bear in mind that the IDS Bulletin is intended for a wide audience in academia, education, practical action, and policymaking. Within each special issue, articles may vary in tone across these audiences. The IDS editorial team assist with making content accessible to all readers (see details below).
The IDS Bulletin will consider commissioned content that meets the ethical criteria noted in Publication Ethics and Peer Review Process.
Storage: All articles are archived in OpenDocs, the IDS Institutional Repository.
ISSN: 0265-5012 (print), 1759-5436 (online).
Impact Factor: 0.862 (2025).
DORA: IDS believes that academic research impact should not be narrowly defined. In 2022, we signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) to show support for multiple measures and metrics to portray journals’ impact, with the aim of moving away from the Impact Factor as a single measure.
Accessibility: All IDS Bulletin articles and whole issues are available as HTML and PDF. This means text can be re-sized or read aloud with assistive technology with screen mark-ups that allow readers (on screen or from keyboard) to access text easily. Readers may increase/decrease font size; reflow text onto required screen size; adjust colour and contrast; enable text-to-speech functionality as required. Where possible alt text is supplied. If any other formats are required please contact publication@ids.ac.uk for assistance. Please note the IDS Accessibility Statement.
Editorial contact: IDS Publications Team
Media enquiries: idsbulletin@ids.ac.uk
Related content: More IDS publications are available through the IDS website.
Publication Ethics and Peer Review Process
Overview
The IDS Bulletin applies the highest editorial and production standards for each issue, placing an emphasis on research integrity, high ethical standards, and constructive peer review, while valuing inclusivity of diverse voices and perspectives.
All articles submitted to the IDS Bulletin undergo a peer review process managed by Issue Editors. This process is designed to ensure that research published in the IDS Bulletin adheres to IDS’ criteria of engaged excellence: the co-construction of rigorous evidence in ways that involve those at the heart of the change we wish to see.
Recognizing the value of differing forms of knowing and writing, we also strive to maintain a diversity of peer reviewers across disciplines, genders, race and geographies.
Process
The peer review process is an essential part of production ensuring that every article published in the IDS Bulletin has met the required criteria to achieve high quality published issues.
Articles are initially screened by Issue Editors and evaluated to ensure that they meet the aims of the specific issue and overall values of the journal. Each article then receives a minimum of two rigorous reviews from reviewers of the Issue Editors’ choosing, at least one of which is a blind review from a reviewer outside IDS.
Reviewers may be researchers, policymakers or practitioners familiar with the field. They are experts in the subject, not on the IDS Bulletin staff; they are only named in the publication on agreement.
Contributors see anonymised referees’ reports together with an editorial view summarising the decision of the reviewers (accept as stands, minor revisions, revise and resubmit, reject). Two review cycles are allowed, taking up to a maximum of 16 weeks.
The IDS Research Ethics Policy aims to provide a framework for supporting this objective and the IDS Publishing Ethics Policy provides an industry-standard framework for upholding ethical standards and applying remedial action.
Issue Editors and editorial staff will ensure that information in submitted manuscripts remains confidential. Manuscripts are evaluated without regard to race, gender, sexual-orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, age, or political viewpoint. Rather, Issue Editors will work with authors who may be less experienced in academic publishing, to hone the manuscript to meet editorial quality standards.
Terms of Reference are also available for authors, Issue Editors, and peer reviewers.
For further details please contact the IDS Publications Team.
Publication Frequency
Three to four issues of the IDS Bulletin are published each calendar year, comprising one volume. These special issues contain original content.
The journal will also periodically release Archive Collections drawing together past articles on particular themes or by specific authors which are relevant for a current event or global challenge. Each Archive Collection will have a new introductory piece by Issue Editors explaining the relevance of the articles to contemporary development discourse and debate.
Open Access Policy
As an organisation that pursues and enables engaged excellence in constructing and sharing knowledge for development, IDS is committed to making research knowledge freely available, accessible, re-usable and relevant to those who can use it to drive transformative social, political, and economic development.
All articles published in the IDS Bulletin are fully Open Access and freely and permanently available to download or read online, from immediate publication.
There are no Article Processing Charges imposed on authors due to an internal business model; nor are there any additional editorial production charges for individual authors. Authors retain ownership of their copyright. (Note however that authors must cover fees for re-use of third-party copyrighted content in their article.)
By adhering to Plan S principles, the IDS Bulletin fulfils many funders’ Open Access publishing criteria.
The IDS Open Access Policy is available on the institutional website.
Licensing
IDS supports the use of Creative Commons licences, particularly CC BY 4.0 or other comparable fully open licences. The journal aims to meet funders’ compliance policies while preferring these most open options. Authors are asked to sign an internal form before assignment of the licence to confirm that they understand and agree to the terms of the licence being issued.
CC BY (Attribution)
This is the most liberal licence, allowing others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work (even commercially) – provided they credit the author for the original creation and clearly indicate that changes were made to the work. Where authors publish with the Creative Commons 4.0 licence they may also post their Version-of-Record PDF article into their institutional repository and personal website, and/or re-use the content without restriction in other works deriving from the article, such as reports or book chapters.
Note: Where authors have previously published with the Creative Commons 4.0 Non-Commercial licence they may post their Version-of-Record PDF article into their institutional repository and personal website. However, authors should understand that the NC licence restricts any re-use into a commercial publication such as a book. However, application may be made directly to idsbulletin@ids.ac.uk for permission, which is decided on a case-by-case basis.
All IDS Bulletin articles are automatically uploaded into OpenDocs, the IDS Institutional Repository, on immediate publication.
About the Publisher
The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) is a leading global institution for research, teaching and learning, and impact and communications, based at the University of Sussex. With the University of Sussex, it has been ranked as the leading academic programme for international development by QS rankings for the last eight years (2017–2025).
We believe passionately that cutting-edge research, knowledge, and mutual learning are crucial in shaping the transformations needed to reduce inequalities, accelerate sustainability and build more inclusive and secure societies. We do this with our global partners through delivering and sharing high quality research and knowledge, and offering first class teaching and learning programmes aimed at producing a new generation of development thought, policy and practice leaders.
Journal History
The IDS Bulletin is the flagship journal produced by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), bringing together the latest thinking and research from IDS members, partner organisations, and other contributors from around the world, and presenting this in an accessible way for development practitioners, policymakers and researchers. Since 1968 it has covered the major themes and influenced debates within international development.
The entire archive of past and present issues may be freely downloaded from Archives | IDS Bulletin.