Humanitarian crises are increasingly shaped by armed conflict, mass displacement, climate shocks, public health emergencies, and contested information environments. As disasters and conflicts grow more complex, effective civilian-military coordination has become essential to preserving humanitarian access, protecting civilians, enabling principled relief operations, and supporting collective response efforts across governments, international organizations, NGOs, academia, and the private sector. This symposium and workshop convene practitioners, scholars, and operational leaders to examine emerging challenges and develop practical approaches for coordination in complex emergencies.

Our research symposium on May 27th features nine oral presentations and ten poster presentations of recently completed research studies, several of which have grown out of working group discussions at our prior workshops, which cover a range of contemporary challenges in global humanitarian action. This year’s presentations cover several timely topics, including human security, policy, and training and simulation.

Following the research symposium is a two-day workshop designed to bring together U.S. armed forces and allied militaries, international leaders from UN agencies and humanitarian Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), private sector, and academia to explore current and future challenges in humanitarian response. Participants will be grouped into a series of working groups that will meet during the workshop to discuss and refine both a policy and research agenda for six major thematic areas, including humanitarian access, protection of civilians, aid worker security, risk, resilience, and response, civil-military and private sector coordination, and biosecurity. Three cross-cutting sessions (Humanitarian Diplomacy, Civil Military Implications of Population Movement, Humanitarian Operations in the Information Environment) will bring together participants from across the thematic working groups for further discussion. May 28th will feature a keynote address by Fabrizzio Carboni (International Committee of the Red Cross; Head of Regional Delegation to the United States and Canada) and May 29th will include a keynote panel composed of representatives from across the academic, humanitarian, private sector, and military communities.