The Trent International Political Economy Centre (TIPEC) is a newly established research centre designed to strengthen Trent University's research capacity in the area of international political economy (IPE). The globalization of economic life has encouraged increased interest in the field of IPE. At the most general level, researchers working within this field are interested in examining the inter-relationship between politics and economics at the international and global levels. In so doing, they build on a long tradition of classical political economy scholarship concerning international and global issues from the 19th and early 20th centuries. But the field has also become a much more multi-disciplinary one in recent years, attracting scholars not just from economics and political science but also from fields such as anthropology, development studies, environmental studies, geography, history, sociology, and women's studies.

At TIPEC, we are strongly committed to the multi-disciplinary nature of the field of IPE in this widest sense. A key goal of much of our research is to break down disciplinary divisions and to integrate insights from various fields of study that are concerned with issues of IPE. We are interested in examining not just issues that preoccupied classical IPE scholarship such as the relationships between states and markets, or power and wealth. Equally important from our perspective is how these relationships interact with environmental issues, spatial and historical contexts, social hierarchies, and cultures and identities. In this age of "globalization", we are also interested in research that calls into question the traditional separation between the political economy of "domestic/national" contexts and that of the "international/global" realm. This separation has become an increasingly problematic one, and we are keen to encourage research that explores relationships between local, national, regional and global political-economic processes and structures.

TIPEC seeks to strengthen Trent University's research in international political economy through the publication of a working paper series. The Centre also sponsors academic talks as well as an annual workshop on a selected theme.