Data has come to underpin more and more areas of life across the globe, and is vital in addressing global challenges. This requires new forms of leadership in both data governance and data for development. Such leadership also rests on strong southern capacities and we bring together researchers, policymakers and practitioners from across the globe.

Whether social movements, protests, citizen mobilisation these panels explore the ways in which people seek to pressure or shape the powerful into more pro-developmental decisions. Whether in richer traditional OECD donor countries or worldwide, how does the public and social movements seek to stand up to authoritarians, populism and authority?

This stream explores how women’s leadership may play in the micro-politics of policy making, and the potential of leadership to advance gender equity in the context of educational reforms.

The SDGs offer a guide to global development priorities for the 21st century. This stream encourages us to engage our emotions in the process of development, explore whether and how participation can challenge power relations, how sustainable mobility can reduce inequalities, the role of systems leadership in delivering on the SDGs and how learning for productivity can inform industrial policy for economic development.

Where do leaders come from? Is it from particular experiences? Can they emerge within specific environments, can they be trained – through developmental or vocational training? This stream provide empirical evidence and hands-on reflective panels to explore where and why leaders come from.

The stream combines two roundtables - on the GCRF past and future, and the scope for universities to lead in achieving the SDGs – with critical discussion of what students get out of studying international development, in the context of the decolonisation agenda on the one hand, and pressures to promote employability on the other.

When people move they – whether conscious, accidental or otherwise – always leave or bring things or parts of their culture. Driven by inequalities and opportunity, hopes and fears, these panels explore how migrants within or across borders reshape livelihoods, networks and cultures.

Responding to environmental degradation requires leadership that can deliver on equitable outcomes. This stream explores the nature of leadership and the wider political economy shapes policy and management of natural resources, land, the blue economy and responses to climate change.

Participation matters for achieving peace, whether it is during peace agreement negotiations or in decision-making in the design and delivery of education in conflict-affected areas. This stream identifies how leadership and innovation can deliver on peace agreements in different contexts and who is involved in making decisions over the nature and content of education in conflict-affected areas.

Forms and styles of leadership are influenced by politics, with implications for development outcomes. This stream examines links between politics, leadership and development outcomes through investigating authoritarian or democratic leadership in Africa and Asia, styles of leadership and governance in Africa and findings from a survey of political settlements.

The focus of aid has shifted at a time of burgeoning authoritarian populist governments and amid public scrutiny of overseas spending. The new challenges to human and environmental well-being necessitate innovative ways of thinking about development and working towards it. This Stream interrogates questions of cooperation and culture, as well critical approaches to the measurement of poverty and polices of social protection.

This stream explores how private sector actors in the global South are assuming leading roles in driving economic transformation, advancing the SDGs, and providing governance for regional value chains.

Third sector leaders are a diverse group who play important, but often unseen, roles in development practice. The stream makes visible the hidden leaders in faith organisations and more formal CSOs, while broadening the scope of the third sector to include networked and market-oriented groups.