Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) is an interfaculty Harvard University initiative dedicated to advancing research, practice, and policy in the field of humanitarian assistance. HHI’s mission is "to relieve human suffering in war and disaster by advancing the science and practice of humanitarian response worldwide".

In 1999, Harvard University established a program on humanitarian crises and human rights at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights in response to growing interest in humanitarian response. By 2002, the demand for technical expertise and educational and training opportunities from NGO partners, professionals, and graduate students overwhelmed the capacity of the existing program. In 2005, Jennifer Leaning, MD, SMH and Michael VanRooyen, MD, MPH established the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative as a University-wide academic and research center to address issues of evidence-based humanitarian interest. In 2010, Michael VanRooyen became Director of HHI. In 2011, HHI launched the Humanitarian Academy at Harvard, an educational arm of HHI and the first Humanitarian Academy of its kind.

The mission of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) is to conduct research and education on the practice of relieving human suffering in war and disaster by advancing the science and practice of humanitarian response worldwide. HHI’s aim is to relieve human suffering in war and disaster by conducting interdisciplinary, practice-based research and education that can be used by scholars, policymakers, HGOs, and others fosters interdisciplinary collaboration in order to:

The Initiative is supported by Harvard's Office of the Provost, and has faculty participation from the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Harvard-affiliated medical centers including Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Boston, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

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