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 Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is also the Chair and a co-editor of the journal Development and ChangeOpens external; and founding (former) editor of the Oxford University Press book series Critical Frontiers of International Development StudiesOpens external. 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 accessOpens external. 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 has written two books on this topic, the second being The Disempowered Development of Tibet in China: A Study in the Economics of MarginalizationOpens external (Lexington Books, 2014), as well as numerous articles in leading journals such as Population and Development Review and China Quarterly. More generally, Fischer has been involved in the field of international development for over 30 years, with experience spanning Latin America, Africa and Asia. Prior to his Ph.D., he spent seven years living with Tibetan refugees in India, and he lived in Western China for two years during and after his Ph.D. Parallel to his ongoing research on western China, he won a prestigious European Research Council Opens externalgrant for work on the political economy of externally financing social policy in developing countries (Aiding Social ProtectionOpens external), which he led from 2015 to 2021. 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]