International Development Studies (IDS) enjoys an international reputation as Saint Mary's University's flagship interdisciplinary program leading the university's commitment to a relevant and internationalized undergraduate and graduate curriculum. IDS serves as a major institutional location for teaching and research for faculty members wishing to focus their professional academic work on the perspectives, policies and practices of international development. The IDS program benefits greatly from the active and attentive support of all levels of the university's administration, and receives substantial financial support for graduate students from the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. Program faculty regularly assist students in finding financial assistance for fieldwork, travel, and conference participation.

IDS offers a bachelor of arts degree (major, minor, concentration, dual major, and honours), a master of arts degree (thesis), a graduate diploma (coursework only), and will eventually be offering a doctoral degree in collaboration with an international consortium of doctoral programs in international development studies.

Linkages with universities, research institutes, and civil society organizations around the globe provide both undergraduate and graduate students with many opportunities to receive credit for studies abroad. The large number of adjunct faculty and program associates provides students with a wide spectrum of thesis and directed reading supervision.Student numbers are kept at a level which allows individual attention and academic support by faculty members.

Saint Mary's IDS offers supervision and curricular concentration in the following areas:

• development theory (analysis of the concepts and perspectives underlying development policy and practice; analysis of global development dynamics);
  
• migration and transnational populations (national development and transient/refugee populations; policies and practices affecting cross-border and internal migration);
  
• environment and sustainable resource management (impact of global environmental policies on regional development; community-based resource management; conservation, resource allocation and utilization);
  
• popular approaches and local practice (community-based, participatory development; assessment of local development assets and local empowerment; structured, bottom-up development);
  
• enterprise and private sector-led change (entrepreneurship and micro-enterprise as tools for development; micro-credit schemes for poverty alleviation; corporate social responsibility); and
  
• gender policies and practice (differential impacts of development on men and women; gendered perspectives on development; gendered analysis of poverty and poverty alleviation.