Future Leaders Programme 14: Industrial Policy for Structural Transformation in the Global South (2026, Closed)

Future Leaders Programme 14: Industrial Policy for Structural Transformation in the Global South (2026, Closed)

The Future Leaders Programme 14 (FLP14) was a SOAS Development Leadership Dialogue workshop on industrial policy and structural transformation in the Global South. It took place in London from 22–26 June 2026. The application deadline was Monday 20 April 2026. That deadline has passed, and the workshop dates have also passed, so this page is a historical reference for the completed cycle rather than an open application listing.

SOAS still hosts the official FLP14 announcement and keeps the application-form link available. That does not make the form a current route into the completed workshop. The Development Leadership Dialogue pages now list later Future Leaders Programmes, including programmes with different themes. Readers looking for a new opportunity should use the current SOAS Development Leadership Dialogue pages and read the terms for the specific programme they choose; they should not treat the FLP14 dates or fee as a promise about a later cycle.

At a glance

The metadata keeps 2026-04-20 as the deadline because it is the real closing date for the recorded application round. The historicalReference = true field is important: it tells the site that the date belongs to an archived cycle and that the page should not present a passed deadline as if applicants could still submit. There is no reason to replace the real date with rolling or ongoing; the official announcement gave a fixed deadline, and the programme itself has already taken place.

What SOAS says the programme was for

The Development Leadership Dialogue (DLD) is a SOAS initiative intended to bring people and disciplines together around economic and social development. Its Future Leaders Programme workshops are designed for a small number of people expected to move into senior leadership positions in the coming years. The workshop format combines lectures, discussion sessions, and debates led by people with substantial experience in government, academia, the private sector, civil society, and international organisations.

FLP14 focused that format on industrial policy for structural transformation in the Global South. The official description starts from a concern about premature deindustrialisation: when economies lose productive capacity before building strong higher-productivity sectors, they can become more dependent on primary commodity exports and unstable, poorly paid service work. The programme’s subject was therefore broader than factory policy. It concerned the institutions, technologies, skills, finance, political coalitions, and international relationships that shape whether economies can build productive capabilities and move into more valuable activities.

The official page also connects industrial policy to ecological pressure. Countries in the Global South face climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and the environmental costs associated with commodity dependence. At the same time, renewable energy potential and critical-mineral deposits can create opportunities for new productive activity. The central policy question is not simply whether a country can export a resource, but whether its policies can turn those opportunities into wider capabilities, better jobs, and more resilient economic structures.

Technology was another part of the programme’s scope. SOAS names renewable energy, lower-carbon production of materials, renewable-energy vehicles, digitalisation, artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, and biotechnology among areas where technologies are developing and combining quickly. The official description argues that Global South countries need greater investment in machines, research and development, and worker training. It also points to technology transfer, spill-overs, local-content requirements, collaboration in research and higher education, and possible changes to international intellectual-property rules as issues relevant to technological learning.

The programme also examined the shifting balance of economic power. The official description discusses the rise of China and other Global South economies, stronger South-South trade and finance, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, and a more uncertain global economic environment. These changes can reduce market access and make foreign aid more transactional, but they may also create additional policy space and opportunities for South-South cooperation. FLP14 treated those developments as part of the practical environment in which industrial policy must be designed and implemented.

Main topics covered by FLP14

The workshop was built around a progression from ideas to implementation. Participants were expected to consider the history and theories behind industrial policy before turning to the practical choices that determine whether a policy survives contact with institutions and politics.

The official topic list included:

• policy design: choosing instruments that fit a country’s capabilities, constraints, sectors, and development aims;
• institutional set-up: deciding which public bodies and other organisations must coordinate, and how responsibilities should be arranged;
• coalition building: creating enough support among public authorities, firms, workers, researchers, and other stakeholders for a long-term policy to be workable;
• implementation: translating a policy decision into programmes, rules, budgets, partnerships, and administrative practice;
• policy learning through monitoring and evaluation: building feedback so that governments can examine results and adjust interventions;
• the changing global policy environment, including South-South cooperation;
• new policy tools and alignment with related policies;
• sustainability and digitalisation; and
• the restructuring of global value chains.

This combination matters because industrial policy is not a single subsidy or a list of preferred industries. A policy can have an attractive objective and still fail because the responsible institutions do not coordinate, firms do not have the capacity to respond, workers are excluded from the transition, or there is no process for learning from results. The programme’s emphasis on institutional design, coalition building, implementation, and monitoring reflects that practical problem.

Global value chains were part of the discussion because production is often distributed across countries and firms. Changes in trade rules, technology, transport, geopolitical relationships, and environmental standards can change the opportunities available to producers in the Global South. The official programme description does not promise a single formula for joining or upgrading in a value chain. Instead, it frames restructuring as an issue that must be considered alongside domestic capabilities, industrial strategy, sustainability, and international cooperation.

Who could apply

Applications were welcome from several parts of the development community. The official categories included governments, the corporate sector, civil society, international organisations, academia, and trade unions. This broad eligibility was consistent with the DLD’s purpose: bringing together actors who often work in separate spheres and may misunderstand one another’s incentives or constraints.

Applicants were normally expected to have at least ten years’ experience in their fields. This was an experience expectation, not a claim that every successful participant had to hold a particular job title. A relevant applicant might have worked in a ministry, a company, an international organisation, a union, a civil-society group, or a university, provided that their experience connected meaningfully to development and the programme’s industrial-policy theme.

The academic condition was more specific. Applicants from academia were expected to provide evidence that they had worked with development practitioners. The official examples were practitioners in national governments, international organisations, the private sector, or civil-society organisations. A purely theoretical interest in industrial policy was therefore less aligned with the published description than research, teaching, advice, or collaboration that had involved people working on real development decisions.

The cross-sector design also means that fit should be described concretely. A government applicant could connect their work to industrial strategy, trade, finance, planning, energy, science and technology, skills, or public procurement. A corporate applicant could explain how manufacturing, processing, logistics, energy, technology, or supply-chain work intersects with public policy. A union or civil-society applicant could address job quality, local content, climate transition, industrial safety, or inclusive growth. An academic applicant could show where their research had been used with practitioners. These examples explain the programme’s intended audience; they do not add eligibility rules beyond those published by SOAS.

Fee, scholarships, and other costs

The published programme fee was GBP 3,000. Participants were also expected to cover the costs of attending in London, including travel, accommodation, and subsistence. Those expenses were separate from the programme fee, so anyone assessing the opportunity would have needed to consider the complete cost of participation rather than comparing only the headline fee.

SOAS stated that some full or partial scholarships were available. Scholarship consideration was not described as an automatic award for every applicant. Applicants who wanted to be considered were instructed to explain their financial circumstances and state clearly how much financial support they were seeking in their covering letters. That instruction is important: a request needed both context and a specific amount, not only a general statement that funding would be helpful.

The official announcement does not publish a guaranteed scholarship value, a fixed number of awards, or a standard package covering particular travel or living expenses. The safe historical record is therefore the published fee, the expectation that participants covered attendance costs, and the statement that some full or partial scholarships were available. A future DLD programme may use different funding terms, so readers should not carry the FLP14 figures forward without checking the new announcement.

How the recorded application worked

The official FLP14 application process required an applicant to complete an online application form. The form asked applicants to explain, in their own words, their views on the challenges for industrial policy in the Global South and to describe their work experience in relevant areas. That wording tells a prospective applicant what the selection process was trying to assess: a grounded understanding of the subject and a credible connection between the applicant’s experience and the workshop’s focus.

The official page does not present a universal document checklist such as a mandatory CV, transcript, portfolio, or reference letter. Those materials may be useful in preparing a professional application, but this page should not turn them into requirements that SOAS did not publish in the FLP14 announcement. The confirmed application step was completion of the online form with the requested written responses and work-experience information.

Applicants seeking scholarship consideration had an additional instruction for their covering letters: explain their financial circumstances and state the amount of support they were seeking. Because the application deadline was 20 April 2026, that request belonged in the completed FLP14 application rather than in a later message asking to be added to the cohort.

A strong historical application would have connected a real policy problem to the workshop themes. For example, an applicant could have explained a challenge involving productive-capability building, technology transfer, local-content policy, sustainable industrialisation, value-chain participation, or coordination between public and private actors. The best response would have made clear what the applicant had already seen in practice, what question they wanted to examine with peers, and how the workshop’s mix of theory, debate, and implementation issues related to their work. Those are practical writing recommendations based on the published application prompt, not additional selection criteria announced by SOAS.

What the workshop format meant for participants

FLP14 was an in-person workshop in London, not a self-paced online course. The official DLD description presents the Future Leaders Programme as a small-group setting with lectures, discussion sessions, and debates. Participants therefore needed to be ready to listen across sectors, test their assumptions, and explain their own experience in a way that others could use.

The programme’s value was not limited to receiving information about industrial policy. Its structure was intended to support dialogue between people who might otherwise approach the same development problem from different positions. A ministry official may focus on administrative authority and fiscal limits. A firm may focus on investment risk, infrastructure, standards, and market access. A union may focus on job quality and bargaining power. A civil-society organisation may focus on distributional effects and accountability. An academic may bring comparative evidence or a framework for evaluating policy. The DLD format creates room for those perspectives to meet directly.

That format also explains the experience expectation. Ten years in a field does not guarantee a useful contribution, but the programme was aimed at people with enough professional exposure to discuss trade-offs from experience. Participants were expected to contribute examples, ask informed questions, and engage with disagreement about policy design and implementation.

Historical status and what to do now

FLP14 is no longer an open opportunity. The application deadline of 20 April 2026 and the workshop dates of 22–26 June 2026 are both in the past as of this page’s update. The official SOAS announcement remains a useful record of the programme’s purpose, audience, fee, scholarship instruction, and application prompt, but it should not be used as a current submission timetable.

SOAS’s Development Leadership Dialogue has since listed later Future Leaders Programmes with different subjects. Anyone seeking a new DLD opportunity should start from the organisation’s current programme index or the page for the newly announced workshop. Check its theme, dates, deadline, fee, eligibility, scholarship language, and application questions independently. A later FLP may preserve the ten-year experience expectation or the discussion-based format, but that cannot be assumed from FLP14.

The verified official source for this archived cycle is the SOAS Future Leaders Programme 14 announcement. The retained application form is the historical external destination associated with the listing. Neither link should be read as evidence that applications for FLP14 are still being accepted.