Professor Andrew Martin Fischer (Erasmus University-Rotterdam, ISS-The Hague) will deliver the lecture on “Population, Poverty and Social Policy” on Saturday March 21st, 2026 from 2 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Andrew Martin Fischer is Professor of Inequality, Social Protection and Development at the International Institute of Social Studies (IISS) in The Hague, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is co-editor of the journal “Development and Change”; and founding editor of the Oxford University Press book series “Critical Frontiers of International Development Studies”. His latest book, “Poverty as Ideology” (Zed, 2018), was awarded the International Studies in Poverty Prize by the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) and Zed Books and, as part of the award, is now fully open access. He was also the Scientific Director of CERES (2019-2023), The Dutch Research School for International Development. Trained in demography and development economics, Fischer works extensively on poverty, inequality, social policy, and international development. He earned his Ph.D. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics (LSE) for his research on China’s regional development strategies in western China and their impact on ethnic minorities, principally Tibetans, but also Uyghurs and other minorities. He is currently focusing on the role of redistribution in development at local, regional and global scales and its interaction with finance and production, while simultaneously maintaining his ongoing research on western China. [read more]