UNU-WIDER, the first research and training centre to be established by the UNU, is an international academic organization set up with the aim of promoting peace and progress by bringing together leading scholars from around the world to tackle pressing global problems.

The UNU was established by the General Assembly on 6 December 1973 to be an international community of scholars engaged in research, advanced training, and the dissemination of knowledge related to the pressing global problems of human survival, development, and welfare.

The UNU established UNU-WIDER following a brainstorming of leading economists of the day outlining the need for an institution to undertake a sustained effort for a more comprehensive understanding of the forces at work in the global economic system and their consequences for specific developing country situations and at the international level In November 1983 Finland offered to host UNU-WIDER in its capital Helsinki, providing premises for the Institute and an endowment fund of US$25 million.

UNU-WIDER was founded by a Host Country Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding signed by the then Foreign Minister of Finland, Paavo Väyrynen, and the Rector of UNU, Soedjatmoko, on 4 February 1984.

Lal Jayawardena was appointed the inaugural director on 1 March 1985, and the institute was initially located at premises at Annankatu 42C in Helsinki, Finland.

In the late 1990s, WIDER undertook a major study of income inequality trends throughout the world under the direction of its then-director Giovanni Andrea Cornia.

Elinor Ostrom, 2009 Paul Krugman, 2008 Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 Amartya Sen, 1998 John C. Harsanyi, 1994 Douglass C. North, 1993 Robert W. Fogel, 1993 Robert M. Solow, 1987 Martti Ahtisaari (Nobel Peace Prize, 2008) Edmund S. Phelps (2006) James A. Mirrlees (1996) During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the press reported on various financial and organisational irregularities about UNU-WIDER and its management.

In-kind contributions, such as assistance in hosting workshops and conferences, are also regularly received from various universities, United Nations agencies and other international organizations.

The WIDER Annual Lecture is delivered by an eminent scholar who has made a significant contribution to the field of economics of development and transition.

2023 Pinelopi Goldberg - Globalization in Crisis – Confronting a New Economic Reality 2022 Daron Acemoglu - In the name of progress 2021 Bina Agarwal - Women's Struggle for Land in South Asia: Can Legal Reforms Trump Social Norms?

A Critique of the Transatlantic Consensus 1998 Joseph E. Stiglitz - More Instruments and Broader Goals: Moving Toward the Post-Washington Consensus 1997 Douglass C. North - The Contribution of the New Institutional Economics to an Understanding of the Transition Problem In 2010 UNU-WIDER was ranked as 7th best International Development Think Tank by the University of Pennsylvania Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program.