Emerging Political Economy (EPE) Network

In 2022, the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) at Wits University was selected to join the Emerging Political Economies (EPE) Network. The EPE Network comprises of eminent scholars at 16 leading universities and policy centres around the world, six of which are in the global South.

Funded by five-year grants from major international philanthropic organisations, including the Hewlett Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Foundation, the network seeks to reimagine political economy for a more equal world. It seeks to investigate how economies in the 21^st Century could and should work better. There is a growing recognition that neo-liberal economic thinking and policies that have dominated the world over the past 50 years have exacerbated poverty, increased inequality within and among nations, and accelerated the climate crisis. Those policies, which have prioritized free market economies, were thought to be more efficient but they have instead left a less equitable world, concentrated wealth among a small elite, and placed the earth on a precipitous pathway of climate change. This has necessitated new economic thinking and an equitable progressive economic paradigm.

The network therefore aims to contribute to exploring new ways of thinking about economics that are responsive to present and future challenges and to advance a global South perspective into the broader global inquiry for more equitable economic models. The network will develop new bodies of research, cross-collaborate and engage scholars, policymakers, and other role players to explore and foster alternative economic rethinking.

SCIS will collaborate with partners in the network to develop a university curriculum and build research and information-sharing networks that focus on complexity thinking in economics, with a particular focus on global South collaborations.

Now in its second year, the Centre’s pioneering MCom in Inequality Studies programme seeks to provide an opportunity for co-teaching, co-networking and developing a pipeline of inequality researchers through various partnerships within this important global network. This programme aims to foster intellectual growth and interconnection through teaching and hosting various exchange programmes which will enable SCIS to meet one of its key objectives of being an interdisciplinary research institution, focused on understanding and addressing structural patterns of inequality in the global South, and around the world.

List of global South and global North institutions:

• Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa
• Columbia University, New York, USA
• Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
• Howard University, Washington DC, USA
• Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA
• University of California, Berkley, USA
• American University Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
• Colegio de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
• Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Mumbai, India
• University of the Andes, Bogota, Colombia
• Brazilian Centre for Analysis and Planning, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• London School of Economics, London, UK
• Oxford University, Oxford, UK
• University College, London, UK
• Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, USA