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Welcome to LSE Research for the World’s Race Equity edition

Tuesday 9 November 2021
2 min read
Baroness Minouche Shafik
LSE Race Equity Framework
LSE Director Baroness Minouche Shafik introduces our first themed special, which focuses on the ways LSE academics are working to advance issues of race equity.

Racism and racial injustice continue to shape our lives in the UK and around the world. Systemic and structural barriers perpetuate inequalities and deny opportunities. While discussions around the need to combat racism have gone on for decades, impactful change has been harder to achieve. Recent years have seen growing political momentum and an urgent desire to make progress.

As a leading social science institution, one of LSE’s roles is to understand intractable social problems like racial inequality through our research, education and public engagement. Our first themed edition of Research for the World highlights some of the ways LSE academics seek to analyse and address the past and present of racial inequality, and address its future.

From examining specific government policy (including fact-checking the UK government’s Sewell Report); to exploring the wider reasons behind societal inequalities (our researchers were among the first to uncover why ethnic minorities were particularly impacted by COVID-19); and identifying areas of future concern (for example, asking what new barriers marginalised communities might be facing as a result of technological advances); our academics are at the forefront of social science research into issues of race equity.

LSE is a proudly global institution, and so our research does not end at Britain’s borders. Our researchers are exploring issues as diverse as the activists fighting for indigenous people’s rights in India, the potential impacts of a major infrastructure project in Colombia, and what Egypt’s political journey can tell us about the consequences of colonialism.

Finally, we cannot ignore the fact that huge changes are needed within the education sector itself. Read more about the research currently underway into how universities are approaching the Widening Participation agenda, as well as how social scientists can address the issue of difference and ensure their research includes a more diverse range of voices.

Features on all the above research, and more, can be found through the Race Equity category on our magazine homepage. For more on the ways LSE is working to advance race equity in education, research and at an institutional level, have a look at our Race Equity Framework.

I hope you enjoy reading about the work we are doing in this area. To stay informed about new LSE research, including on race equity, please subscribe to LSE Research for the World.

Baroness Minouche Shafik, LSE Director
November 2021

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Baroness Minouche Shafik

Former President and Vice Chancellor of LSE
Minouche Shafik

Nemat (Minouche) Shafik is the Prime Minister’s Chief Economic Adviser, driving forward the Government’s work to drive economic growth and raise living standards for all. She is an economist, policymaker, and higher education leader who has spent over three decades in leadership roles across a range of prominent international, national and academic institutions. She was the youngest-ever Vice President of the World Bank at the age of 36 where she worked on its first-ever report on the environment, led work on infrastructure and the private sector, and advised governments across Eastern Europe and the Middle East. She has been Deputy Governor of the Bank of England responsible for markets and banking, and Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund leading work on the Eurozone. Her tenure as Permanent Secretary of the UK's Department for International Development coincided with the department being ranked the best performing in government and helped secure the UK's commitment to giving 0.7% of GDP to fight poverty in the poorest countries in the world.

Minouche was previously President of Columbia University and was President and Vice Chancellor (formerly Director) of the London School of Economics and Political Science from September 2017 to June 2023 where she drove academic excellence, improved student experience and raised substantial philanthropic support.

Minouche Shafik received her BA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, an MSc from LSE, and a DPhil from St Antony's College, Oxford. She holds a life peerage and is a crossbench member of the House of Lords. She received a damehood for services to the global economy, was Deputy Chair and a Trustee of the British Museum, currently serves on the Board of the Gates Foundation, is a distinguished Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the Bretton Woods Committee. She is an honorary Fellow of the British Academy and of St. Antony's College, Oxford University, and has six honorary doctorates. Her recently published book, “What We Owe Each Other” has been translated into twelve languages.

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