India’s development challenges are complex — inequality, climate stress, gaps in public services, and uneven access to opportunity. The MA in Development programme at Azim Premji University prepares you to understand these issues deeply and work towards solutions that make development just, inclusive, and sustainable.

This two-year, full-time postgraduate programme combines strong academic grounding with immersive field experience. You will explore how development practise has evolved, engage with ethical and practical questions, and learn to work across systems, from communities and markets to government and policy spaces.

If you want a career that strengthens institutions and redefines development from the ground up, this programme is for you.

Who should join?

You should consider this programme if you want to:

Address real challenges
Learn to tackle issues such as inequality, environmental degradation, and access to essential services through a grounded and evidence-based approach.

Understand how systems shape lives
Explore how social, political, and economic forces intersect and why effective change requires collaboration among communities, governments, markets, and civil society.

Build skills to work in the field
Develop practical tools in research, data analysis, programme design, and project management through a blend of classroom learning and field practice.

Prepare for purposeful careers
Graduates go on to work in NGOs, research institutions, philanthropic foundations, and social enterprises, contributing meaningfully to development across India.

Why study Development at Azim Premji University

Theory meets fieldwork
You will spend over 16 weeks in the field, learning directly from communities and organisations while connecting real-world experiences to classroom ideas.

Faculty with deep engagement with development concerns
Learn from a team that combines academic rigour with hands-on work across India’s development landscape.

Ethics at the core
Every course emphasises equality, inclusion, and sustainability, preparing you to approach development with empathy and responsibility.

A wide-angle view of development
Understand how history, society, ecology, and policy interact, and how to work effectively across these intersections.

A supportive, diverse community
Join a collaborative learning environment with mentoring, student-led initiatives, and opportunities to engage beyond the classroom.

Classroom Practices

Learn through experience
Concepts are continually reinforced through fieldwork, ensuring you understand development as a lived reality.

Simulation and practice-based learning
Signature workshops such as Janata Express and Surveypura recreate field contexts in the classroom to make complex ideas engaging and practical.

Learn through projects
The Winter Field Project and elective workshops allow you to design and test ideas, from social entrepreneurship models to local development initiatives.

Practitioner-led teaching
Engage with grassroots workers, development professionals, and guest experts who bring current field insights into the classroom.

Inclusive, collaborative environment
Group work and peer learning ensure that students from diverse backgrounds can learn, contribute, and grow together.