This article provides an overview of past and present debates relating to the essential terms and role of development research. It starts by briefly exploring the paradigm shifts in (research on) international relations from post-colonial area studies and the evolution of development research from the second half of the twentieth century until today. It considers their interrelationship and links to various past and newly emerging development challenges. The authors argue that global paradigm shifts posed a number of fundamental challenges to development research and the profession had to re-think its role and acquire competencies accordingly. The second part considers how to make development research more relevant for the twenty-first century. Today, the prospects for development research are much better than usually acknowledged, for a host of different reasons. However, development research needs to develop new ways and strategies in order to address complex inter-related problems in the era of globalization as well as changing donor-recipient relationships. This is even more important since policies regarding the Millennium Development Goals would seem to be insufficient in the future. New threats such as security risks or climate change and the emergence of China and India must be considered carefully.
