Collaborative partners
Through partnerships with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), industry bodies and policy-makers we are able to make a meaningful impact in the field and reach many key humanitarian decision-makers internationally.
Providing humanitarian aid effectively is influenced by policy at many levels.
Local, regional, national and international laws and regulations can all have an effect of responses and initiatives, and the insights and opinions of those providing and managing aid are important.
To help shape the regulatory climate we share and facilitate events, carry out policy briefings and workshops, and inform lawmakers all over the world through academic research outputs. Our experienced staff are members of various boards and advisory groups and we have a number of affiliated staff and contacts who also contribute to the dissemination of our work.
Since 2008, we have developed a range of lasting collaborative partnerships, to deliver educational programmes, co-produce research and provide opportunities for our students and alumni. These include international NGOs, such as MSF, and local humanitarian organisations, through the Global Manchester partnership.
If you would like to explore supporting the work of the Institute through research collaborations, educational programmes, policy work, or charitable gifts, please contact us.
Our partners
We have a number of staff affiliated with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative - an international, multidisciplinary partnership of organisations working on improving humanitarian responses worldwide.
Our robust approach to humanitarian education has led to a teaching arrangement with the IFRC, and we are pleased to contribute to their staff and associate training programmes.
Our Global Health MSc and free Global Health and Humanitarianism (MOOC) course were developed in partnership with IFRC and is offered by their learning portal.
The Global Health MSc is part-time and has flexible study pathways (PGCert, PGDip), to make it more accessible.
In delivering global health learning, we have integrated IFRC competencies to allow students at HCRI to benefit from professional insights of humanitarianism as it operates in a real-world setting.
Inua Kike is a community-based organisation in Nairobi, Kenya, that works to empower women from underprivileged backgrounds to obtain social and economic mobility through education, entrepreneurship, and community.
HCRI has developed a partnership with Inua Kike, with the latter participating in HCRI’s undergraduate course unit ‘Professional Experience Project’ and visiting the university in November 2023 to speak at events on ‘citizen-led transformations’.
HCRI’s Director of Operations and Partnerships – Dr Adele Aubrey - was privileged to have been invited to become a Board Director at Inua Kike.
The Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, Médecins Sans Frontières and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) have formed a unique education partnership, via a joint vision of supporting global humanitarian assistance, with a focus on saving lives in resource-poor countries through research, education and capacity strengthening.
The Leadership Education Academic Partnership (LEAP) Programme in Humanitarian Practice launched in January 2019, with the aim of enhancing the skills and knowledge of humanitarian professionals for stronger operations and leadership in the field.
The driving force behind the LEAP programme is to provide a degree that reflects the need for critical thinking and analytical reasoning, supporting humanitarian professionals to discover alternative responses to challenges presented in their own organisation and beyond.
Through its joint delivery by two leading institutes in the field of humanitarian education, LEAP brings together experience from subject areas including humanities, political science, development, global and public health, epidemiology and the arts to deliver a truly multidisciplinary approach to education. Its co-production between practitioners and universities is unique in combining conceptual debates with the dilemmas of everyday humanitarian practice.
Global student community
Students and alumni of the LEAP programme have come from over 40 countries.
The programme is now open to applications from any humanitarian professionals with the aim of supporting access to education to promising humanitarian leaders through a blended online and face-to-face environment.
The flexibility of the programme allows it to be studied alongside a student's professional work, regardless of location or job function.
Wider links with MSF
As an Institute, we maintain strong links with MSF outside of the LEAP programme.
Our former Director Rony Brauman was President of Médecins Sans Frontières (France) for 12 years and Director of Research Bertrand Taithe is on the Scientific Board of CRASH at MSF Paris.
The organisation is one of the leading bodies in international medical assistance and we have helped influence activity whilst gaining insights from operations all over the world.
Mines Advisory Group (MAG) is a global anti-landmine charity, headquartered in Manchester.
They work to find and destroy landmines, cluster munitions and unexploded bombs in places affected by conflict, as well as work to limit the causes and address the consequences of armed violence in communities.
MAG has worked with HCRI on bespoke careers events, has participated in our undergraduate Professional Experience Project (PEP) module, and we regularly interact via the Global Manchester coalition of humanitarian organisations based in the region.
In 2021, HCRI signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a close working relationship in respect of research, education, and the application of knowledge in the broad area of humanitarian response.
Project Trust has been providing Gap Year opportunities for 17-19 year old school leavers for almost 50 years.
Our partnership is designed to provide educational opportunities for Project Trust returned volunteers who want to pursue a career in the humanitarian field, and to draw on Project Trust's wealth of experience to provide opportunities and support for existing students.
Project Trust provides all volunteers with training and support before, during and after their time overseas, to maximise both the educational value of their experience and the positive impact they have in their projects and host communities.
Volunteers return home with broadened horizons, increased maturity and an impressive range of transferable skills.
Volunteers can now receive accreditation of a NOCN Level 3 Diploma in International Volunteering.
Save the Children and HCRI have formed a strategic partnership, enabling Save the Children to draw upon HCRI’s research capacity and scholarly expertise, and giving HCRI opportunities to conduct field research that directly informs humanitarian policy and practices.
This innovative partnership is aimed at improving the organisation, implementation and understanding of humanitarian activities.
HCRI and Save the Children (StC) have collaborated on doctoral research through Dr Jenny Chapman and Juliano Fiori.
Gareth Owen, the Humanitarian Director of StC UK, is an honorary staff in HCRI and often takes part in our annual Careers Day.
We are happy to collaborate in our jointly owned journal: Journal of Humanitarian Affairs.
The open access journal contributes to current thinking around humanitarian governance, policy and practice with academic rigour and political courage.
HCRI is proud to support the Humanitarian Leadership Academy which launched in March 2015.
It is a ground-breaking initiative which aims to train frontline humanitarian responders to mobilise locally, revolutionising how the world responds to humanitarian disasters and emergencies.
The first of its kind, the Humanitarian Leadership Academy is a truly global collaboration between the private sector, governments, academia and NGOs designed to save lives and ensure increasing humanitarian needs are better served at point of impact.
The Academy is working with northern- and southern-led aid agencies such as Oxfam, BRAC, Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children and Action Against Hunger as well as leading academic establishments including Open University and HCRI.
We have an official agreement with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in India, which involves an annual educational visit of HCRI students on a specific module.
TISS is a centre of excellence in international social higher education, and our agreement enables students to gain valuable overseas experience and benefit from humanitarian and social insights from another culture.
HCRI and charity UK-Med have formed a collaboration in the delivery of research, seminars, training and the sharing of best practice, knowledge and opportunities.
UK-Med is a non-governmental organisation which aims to deliver high-quality emergency medical care to people affected by epidemics, conflict and natural disasters.
UK-Med has been developing and deploying volunteer clinicians and allied healthcare professionals to support international emergency medical response since 1988.
UK-Med is a core partner in the delivery of the UK Emergency Medical Team (UKEMT) programme (previously including the UK International Emergency Trauma Register and the UK International Emergency Medical Register) funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).
As part of this programme, UK-Med hosts registers of trained clinicians and allied healthcare professionals (medical, trauma and public health) within the UK-Med Community of Practice.
Find out more
As a Collaborating Centre, HCRI focuses on supporting WHO programmes intended for developing health capacities in conflict and post-conflict contexts, through the provision of technical advice, conflict analysis, and research.
Key staff are Prof Bertrand Taithe and Dr Stephanie Rinaldi.
Technical advice
HCRI provides technical inputs and advice to WHO in its activities aimed at developing health capacities and sustaining peace in fragile, vulnerable, conflict and post-conflict contexts.
This includes the development of in-country emergency health programmes intended for conflict or post-conflict contexts, or for sustaining peace.
Conflict analysis
HCRI reviews and provides conflict analysis for the country/context to summarise it for WHO’s intent, using UN guidelines for conflict analysis.
Research
Another core function of this collaboration is for HCRI to conduct research on the interaction between state and international humanitarian interventions in conflict contexts.
This will involve research on the impact of conflict on health service personnel and structures in the contexts where WHO is operating.
For example, research papers on peace and health structures; and reports on proposed emergency and peacebuilding health programmes.
Support to the Emergency Medical Teams Office at WHO
Between 2016-2019, HCRI was a WHO Collaborating Centre for Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) and Emergency Capacity Building, drawing on its experience of establishing the UK International Trauma Register (UKITR).
Emeritus Professor Tony Redmond OBE and Honorary Fellow Dr Amy Hughes MBE lead colleagues at HCRI to work closely with WHO to provide support on the training, mentorship, and global register of EMTs.
You can read more about HCRI’s work in this area on the project page for The Emergency Medical Teams Project with HKAM.
This programme engages secondary school students in current world affairs, and encourages them to take on and attempt to deal with complex global crises.
HCRI students have organised a number of Young People in Humanitarianism Conferences (YPHC), for which they are assessed through their participation, organisation and reflection.
They are tasked with designing and delivering a series of interactive talks and exercises on issues related to humanitarianism and disaster response, for participants from local secondary schools to tackle.
At the 2024 YPHC, we were joined by over 80 students from Manchester Academy, Malbank School, Wirral Grammar, Altrincham College, and Reddish Vale School.
The bulk of the day was an extended disaster response simulation, with sessions on:
- preparing the population for the event - role of the media;
- managing an unfolding disaster;
- getting aid – post disaster.
We hope this will become an annual event, given its success to date.
Previous YPHCs have included a day with Buile Hill Visual Arts College, with thematic streams on: human rights, refugees and disasters and climate change.
Some learned to devise human rights for the fictional 'People's Republic of Greater Manchester'; others experienced a day in the life of a refugee; whilst some tackled climate change problems.
- Global Emergency Care Collaborative (GECCo)
- Faculty of Remote, Rural and Humanitarian Healthcare at Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
- Global Development Institute at University of Manchester
- Faculty of Biology Medicine and Health at University of Manchester
- University Hospital South Manchester
- The Manchester Academic Health Science Centre
- Centre for Resolution of International Conflicts