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Students in Uganda. Photo by Helena Martinsen, 2003.

The Global Humanitarian Studies Index was created by the Program on Humanitarian Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs as an information hub to link students, faculty, research centers, and institutions which are committed to the evolution of humanitarian studies. While focusing on humanitarianism we also hope the site will benefit those in our partner fields such as human rights, development, conflict resolution, security, international organizations, and more.

What is humanitarian studies?

The common mission of humanitarian studies programs is to prepare students to assess the needs of people affected by natural and man-made disasters and manage appropriate and effective interventions to save and improve lives in cooperation with the surviving community. The humanitarian field includes everything from medicine, water engineering, epidemiology, program management, and fundraising.

Who benefits from humanitarian assistance?

Examples of the types of people who most benefit from the work of humanitarians could be survivors of a flood in Bangladesh who receive and manage emergency shelter; survivors of a forest fire in California who are helped to rebuild their homes; survivors of famine in Sudan who receive and provide therapeutic nutritional assistance; or refugees fleeing war in Nepal who participate in emergency health interventions.

Your very own humanitarian rolodex

Within the Global Humanitarian Studies Index prospective students may search for an institution in their preferred region of the world with a humanitarian specialty they wish to acquire. Current students may choose to contact experts at partner institutions for research on a specific topic or invite them to speak. Most importantly, the humanitarian academic community can bridge communication gaps, build partnerships, and thereby encourage the advancement and greater success of field programs that save and improve the lives of people surviving disasters.

What kind of humanitarian studies programs are offered?

Professional training on humanitarian assistance has grown widely in graduate schools in the developed world, though it remains a new, experimental specialization for some. Columbia University offers humanitarian coursework within a two-year Master of International Affairs as part of the Program on Humanitarian Affairs or a focus on Forced Migration and Health within a two-year Master of Public Health. Coalitions such as the Network of Humanitarian Assistance (NOHA) in Europe and the Inter-University Initiative (IUI) in the greater Boston area have risen to unite training efforts and provide these programs the strength to become autonomous degree-granting departments, rather than merely a collection of classes within a broader department.

Outside of the developed world, training in humanitarian issues tends to belong to a more general department. For example, at Makarere University in Kampala, Uganda, studying agriculture or health is inherently related due to the crises in the region it is studied in, thus the need for titular specialization is not necessary. Institutions like Karachi University have pursued research on related issues such as conflict resolution.