“The importance of humanitarian studies and conflict research will continue to grow”

Prof. Dr. Dennis Dijkzeul, Professor in the Management of Humanitarian Crises at the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV) at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Professor Dennis Dijkzeul runs the Master’s programme in Human Rights and Democratization (AA, Foto: Jan Greune)

What assistance is required by people in crisis regions affected by war, violence or natural disasters? What minimum standards must be observed even in extremely dire situations? How should aid organizations liaise and interact? These are just a few of the questions to which Dennis Dijkzeul seeks answers. The analysis of crises around the world is thus an ongoing focus of the Dutchman’s research. Since October 2002 Dennis Dijkzeul, 43, has been junior professor in the management of humanitarian crises at the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV) at the Ruhr-Universität. This is the first chair of its kind in Europe. In October 2009 Dijkzeul will be appointed professor of organization and conflict research at the Bochum-based Institute.

Something completely new

The economist’s academic career has taken him from the Netherlands to New York’s Columbia University and then to western Germany, with stints as an economic advisor in Africa, America and Asia. As a researcher in the United States he had close contacts with the political decision-makers at the United Nations and in the White House. That was also how he met Professor Horst Fischer, at the time IFHV academic director in Bochum, who inspired him to return to Europe and start something completely new at the Ruhr-Universität. As junior professor in Bochum Dijkzeul has spearheaded the new discipline of humanitarian studies in Europe – a subject with enormous potential and ambitious civil society goals. He is also involved in the Institute’s international activities and research on disaster and crisis regions. An important part of his motivation is the knowledge that his research benefits people in crisis regions.

Increasing demands

What expectations does the professor have of his students? “We need to be close to local people so we can better understand their needs. And when you’re actually on the spot you discover more about the strategies of the conflict parties and also the occasional misuse of aid.” That’s why he feels it’s very important for students to spend several months in a crisis region learning about the situation at first hand. Dijkzeul hopes to make humanitarian studies in Europe a research and teaching field in its own right.

“The challenges of the future are climate change, environmental degradation, war and migration. There are now fewer wars, but the way these challenges interact with existing and new crises means the demands on governments, aid organizations and aid workers are increasing. That’s why the importance of humanitarian studies, of organization and conflict research, will continue to grow,” says Dijkzeul.

Professor Dennis Dijkzeul runs the Master’s programme in Human Rights and Democratization (AA, Foto: Jan Greune)

Applying interdisciplinary knowledge

Crises are constantly in flux and there are no simple solutions, he points out. This is something students, aid workers in crisis regions and decision-makers in donor countries must always bear in mind. The aim of research is to enable policymakers in western industrialized countries to make informed decisions and help international organizations to better coordinate their response to wars, epidemics and natural disasters. Humanitarian studies is a very broad subject covering the politics and financing of humanitarian assistance, its principles, actors and management as well as international humanitarian law. To meet the considerable demand for research in this area, Dijkzeul collaborates closely with his Bochum-based colleagues in the fields of international humanitarian law, social science, medicine and geosciences. With their joint research findings he hopes to create an interdisciplinary knowledge base offering valuable insights into the many aspects of this complex subject.

Worldwide research network

Dijkzeul believes networking is very important. In February 2009, for example, he was one of the organizers of the World Conference of Humanitarian Studies in Groningen in the Netherlands, which brought together 500 researchers, policymakers and practitioners. This was the world’s first meeting of professionals whose job is dealing with humanitarian crises. The gathering was also an opportunity for Dijkzeul to co found the International Humanitarian Studies Association. He sees the Association as another link in this young discipline’s global research network and a useful addition both to his Institute’s membership of the Network on Humanitarian Assistance (NOHA) between various European universities and its involvement in the EU’s Erasmus Mundus programme. All efforts to promote interchange, scientific methods and humanitarian assistance per se, however, are contingent on two key factors:

“The international community must provide money for reconstruction, and governments in the crisis regions must practise good governance and take action, for example, on corruption,” says Dijkzeul. “Humanitarian crises are a huge challenge and can be addressed effectively only by working together.”

Text: Dorit Amelang

"12 Worlds of Knowledge" is realized in cooperation with the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)