Following a comprehensive strategy workshop towards the end of 2020, we have redesigned our research clusters and given them a new structure. Having reduced the number from five to three, each cluster now has two representatives, one speaker being a senior researcher and the other a PhD student. The role of a spokesperson will also alternate on an annual basis, providing opportunities for our younger colleagues to take over responsibilities right from the start and benefiting from the experiences of their senior peers.   
Coming from a strong tradition of international humanitarian law and human rights law, the institute today combines high-level inter-disciplinary research from the disciplines of public law, social science, geosciences and public health.
We examine the origins of humanitarian crises; the legal parameters before, during and in the aftermath of crises; the effects crises have on people, societies and institutions; and the responses states, international organizations and non-governmental organizations give to crises. We publish our research results regularly in our bi-lingual and peer-reviewed journal ‘Journal of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict’ (JILPAC), in our legal newsletter ‘Bofaxe’ and in our ‘IFHV Working Paper Series’.

Human Rights and Humanitarian Protection
Humanitarian action consists of two main pillars: protection and assistance. This Cluster focuses on the interpretation, implementation and compliance with international human rights standards in emergencies, protracted crises and situations of risk and pays attention to the actors involved in these processes.

Violent Disruptions and Forced Migration
This Cluster focuses on Violent Disruptions, Forced Migration and their connections. Violent
disruption encompasses natural (often man-made) disasters as well as events of collective
violence like wars, civil wars, genocides, or pogroms. Forced migration is regularly a
consequence of such events. Precisely, the causes, prevention, monitoring and mitigation of
violent disruptions and forced migration are central in the cluster’s research projects,
lectures, publications and events as is the critical analysis of the legal framework regulating
the aforementioned matters.

Humanitarian Governance and Management Research Cluster
This Cluster focuses on humanitarian governance as a specific part of global governance. It looks at the interaction between actors, institutions, norms, standards, practices, discourses and technologies in relation to humanitarian crises. A special emphasis lies on the management of actors in crises as the mechanisms which translate humanitarian governance into practice. The focus on these two elements - governance & management - embodies the IFHV's overall orientation to both academia and practice.

Researchers of the IFHV conduct research on the doctoral and the postdoctoral level, are engaged in long-term international research projects and regularly comment on current crises in the public media.

For an overview of our PhD projects, please click here.
For an overview of our ongoing research projects, please click here.
For an overview of our past research projects, please click here.