Thematic clusters at MHRC offer research fellows the opportunity to work in peer groups and draw on expertise across disciplines. Gender, labour, and historical foundations are considered as cross-cutting themes.
Political Economy and Governance
The Political Economy and Governance cluster is interested in the political impact of socioeconomic change, issues of state capacity and performance, and local government structures and localized politics.
The education cluster investigates the formation and effects of teaching and learning policy decisions within the constraints and opportunities posed by Pakistan’s particular political economy and society, with implications for similarly placed contexts.
The Energy, Environment and Public Health Cluster at the Mahbub-ul-Haque Research Centre weaves together knowledge from the natural and social sciences to create transdisciplinary scholarship that informs environmental, energy and public health policies in Pakistan.
The Cities research cluster examines new forms of urban change, politics and transformation, with a focus on rapidly urbanizing cities of the Global South. It seeks to document and study new urban spatial forms, covering a variety of aspects, including, but not limited to cartographies, economies, politics, social structures, and urban cultural life.
The inequality, poverty and inclusion cluster looks into the determinants of inequality, the drivers of poverty and the underlying factors that lead to unequal growth. It further investigates how effective interventions can be made for inclusive growth, both at the macro and micro level.
The MHRC Technology in Society Cluster seeks to bring together practitioners and academics engaged in studying the various implications of technology for developing country contexts. This represents a departure from a focus on the target markets and applications of the earliest Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which were largely more economically developed contexts.
The cluster aims to provide evidence to strengthen the fiscal compact between governments and citizens in Pakistan and provide a knowledge base for other developing countries facing similar fiscal challenges.
