Research Pillars

Research Clusters at the Global Poverty Research Lab

The Global Poverty Research Lab (GPRL) at Northwestern University advances innovative, field-based research to better understand and alleviate poverty across the globe. Our work is organized around several key research clusters, each focusing on specific themes or regions to generate actionable insights and policy-relevant findings.

The clusters are built around a simple principle: we can produce more and better research by creating a common infrastructure, whether geographic or sectoral, upon which to then engage in research and policy work. At inception, we absorbed and expanded several existing clusters and are proactively building new ones.

Why Clusters?

Not all clusters are identical, but their roles are generally the same in that we started by collecting long-term panel data. Alongside these data, we conduct experiments to measure the impact of interventions of interest in economics, political science, psychology and public health, as well as test theories of interest for policy-relevant academic research. Clusters fill the following key niches:

• Collection of long-term data to gather in-depth information about individuals, families and their communities. These data can support the design and implementation of new interventions for testing and are sufficiently flexible to accommodate new graduate student research questions.
• Economies of scope in research: Currently, the infrastructure for conducting field research is wasteful, with large surveys frequently being rolled out for the purpose of single projects. Many research questions could be answered by starting with a large, representative dataset and then finding implementing parties willing to overlap their operations over the sample frame, rather than the other way around. This is particularly true on theory-led experimentation, in which the researcher is designing a field activity deliberately to test specific theories of development.
• Multi-faceted interventions, which enable observation of the interactions of different programs. This facilitates research on interactions between different dimensions of behavior. Simultaneous testing to compare program effectiveness is critical for policymakers and donors tasked with making decisions on the allocation of scarce resources. 

Get Involved

• Training sites: Student-training sites continuously host students, both undergraduate and graduate, to learn about and contribute to the research process. The partnership will support summer, semester-long or yearlong internships for Northwestern undergraduates working in one of the clusters. Students in research clusters engage directly in the research process.
• Development research: Northwestern faculty and graduate students are invited to contribute to ongoing development research in either geographic or sectoral clusters
• Research assistantships: There will also be a post-baccalaureate program of research assistants working for one to two years on cluster research, as well as direct engagement of PhD or MBA students in cluster-supported research.