Aims of the working group

This IHSA working group aims to boost and make safety and security initiatives and efforts more widely discussed, developed, and implemented. It intends to explore and make strides on matters of safety and security during research, both for those working within their home country, and as foreigners. Also to offers a space for discussing the safety and security agenda, identifying institutional barriers, and sharing good practices pertaining to the safety, security and ethical components of doing research.

While considerations of security are obvious for researchers working in conflict environments, the working group is meant to explore issues for researchers operating both in volatile environments and in areas not considered particularly hazardous. In addition, seemingly ordinary health and safety concerns may take on extraordinary significance in precarious environments without proper awareness and risk management planning in advance. Similarly, authoritarian places and the politicisation of humanitarian action and even the research of it also invites us to think about the risks of our endeavours. It is those kinds of scenarios that the working group seeks to raise awareness around, in addition to more traditional safety and security considerations.