The Humanitarian Research Group (HRG)

HRG was established by Prof. Luk Van Wassenhove in 2001 and has recently been integrated into the newly-founded INSEAD Social Innovation Centre. The ultimate objective of the group is to facilitate cross-learning between the actors currently engaged in humanitarian response activities.

The specific areas of focus are disaster preparedness, response coordination, and stakeholder collaboration (including the private sector).

Close collaboration with practitioners and the private sector has enabled the group to produce a unique set of materials capturing the complexity and evolution of issues affecting the humanitarian sector. To date the group has produced a body of work of over 20 research reports, case studies and other pedagogical materials.

The Management in the Humanitarian Sector programme is one of the group’s many contributions to this sector based on their work to date.

Our pedagogical methods

Sessions feature a mix of pedagogical approaches: lecture discussions, group work, real examples, case analysis, computer simulations and evening work.

The teaching material is based on original research adapted for practical use.

Our pragmatic teaching approach encourages interaction and integration among participants.

We avoid easy answers, encourage healthy scepticism and legitimise dissenting views.

We are more concerned with raising the right questions, not with providing seemingly easy and comprehensive solutions.

• Acquire the tools and concepts to raise the standard of management within humanitarian organisations

• Develop inter-sector and cross-sector learning to better facilitate cooperation among the various actors involved with the humanitarian sector

• Benchmark best practices and organisational challenges with the different stakeholders

• Enable private sector managers to learn from the specific skill set of humanitarians including agility, flexibility and efficiency in a highly volatile environment