About Us
The International Humanitarian Studies Association is a network engaged with the study of humanitarian crises caused by disaster, conflict or political instability. Humanitarian studies concern how humanitarian crises evolve, how they affect people and their institutions, communities and societies, and the responses they trigger.
We form a platform for the different disciplines that address humanitarian studies. It offers a venue where these scholarly communities can meet and debate their different insights and understanding of humanitarian crises, in dialogue with policy actors and implementing agencies. IHSA equally welcomes academic scholars, consultants, policy researchers, and reflective practitioners among its membership.
If you are not a member already, please join us today! If you want to find out more about IHSA Governance and how we function please have a look at our Governance page.
IHSA 2025 Conference in Istanbul, 15-17 October
The IHSA Conference on Humanitarian Studies will be held in Istanbul, Türkiye.
The multi-day conference at Marmara University will feature both in-person and online paper presentations, roundtable discussions, and keynotes, as well as a social element for in-person attendees.
The theme for the conference is Humanitarianism in Crisis: New Realities in Practices and Knowledges. The conference will be held between 15-17 October, in collaboration with Marmara University, Global Disaster Preparedness Center and the Turkish Red Crescent.
For more information including the sub-themes, panel submissions and registrations go to the IHSA conference website!
Relevant resources
As a part of our efforts to connect the actors in the humanitarian sector, we have created a selection of humanitarian resources for our community.
This selection includes a wide variety of topics and resources like:
- A humanitarian organizations database
- A humanitarian blogs database
- Our weekly humanitarian blog post selection
- We also have created more useful selections of movies, documentaries, and journals among others.
Membership
IHSA offers two types of membership. Individual membership and institutional membership. We equally welcome academic scholars, consultants, policy researchers, and reflective practitioners among our membership. Do you think your institution might be interested in joining IHSA please send us an email. More information about institutional membership can be found here.
The individual membership fee is 25 Euro per year. You can fill in the membership registration form to become a member.
Members:
- Are entitled to elect the officers of the Board of IHSA
- Receive a discount on any book in the IHSA/ Routledge Humanitarian Studies series
- Can participate in IHSA web-based activities
- Can join, or start, IHSA Working Groups
- Can join (online or in-person) the IHSA conference on Humanitarian Studies
- Receive a regular IHSA newsletter
- Can freely advertise new initiatives, publications, events (etc!) via the IHSA Social Media channels and weekly newsletter
