Workshop on Humanitarian Logistics Research, Arlington, VA, September 2014

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

This grant provides funding to host a workshop on Humanitarian Logistics Research. Humanitarian logistics (HL) is involved with the transportation, handling, and distribution of the critical supplies needed by both the population that survives a disaster, and the disaster response itself. Inefficient HL leads to massive human suffering if the population needs are not met, or if critical disaster response functions-such as search and rescue, medical assistance, among other-slow down, or come to a halt, due to the lack of critical supplies. Regrettably the amount of research on this subject of national importance is not commensurate with its importance. Adding to the problem, only a tiny number of researchers in logistics study the realities of HL, the practitioners that have disaster research experience have almost no contact with these researchers, while the social scientists with expertise in disasters have very few interactions with the scholars in HL. These important groups of stakeholders-logisticians, social scientists, and practitioners-tend not to work together to improve the important field of HL. The main objectives of this workshop are to address this issue by: (1) providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences between practitioners and researchers from all relevant disciplines (e.g., social sciences, engineering, logistics) on the subject of HL; (2) helping break barriers and establish links of communication between research communities that typically do not interact with each other; and, (3) defining the key components of a research agenda to addresses basic research needs on HL. To achieve its objectives, the workshop will be structured around presentations on the topics of "The Realities of Humanitarian Logistics;" "The Social Side of Humanitarian Logistics;" "The Analytics of Humanitarian Logistics;" and "Research Needs on Humanitarian Logistics." These presentations will be followed by breakout discussions to define research agendas on: "The Social Sciences of Humanitarian Logistics" and "The Analytics of Humanitarian Logistics." A plenary discussion will synthesize a comprehensive research agenda. A workshop report will summarize the work done and the key insights of the discussion. The workshop is an extremely cost-effective way to gather worldwide expertise on a subject of national significance, as amply demonstrated by the recent disaster of Super Storm Sandy, and Hurricanes Irene and Lee. The workshop will have a profound impact on the definition of a forward looking research that, by tapping into the expertise of leading scholars from multiple disciplines, addresses the basic research needs of the country to enhance the efficiency of the HL procedures at the core of disaster response procedures.