Two main governing bodies
The Humanitarian Encyclopedia has two main governance bodies: the Advisory Board and the Scientific Committee.
Both bodies play a key role in orienting, discussing, nourishing, challenging and disseminating the research results.
The Advisory Board is currently composed of 20 representatives from 13 operational organisations and 7 humanitarian support groups. Members come from all regions of the world covering a wide range of expertise relevant to humanitarian action.
The Advisory Board’s role is to:
- Critically examine the development of the project
- Provide strategic direction
- Offer advice and provide input at specific stages of the process (e.g. final selection of concepts, usefulness of various products)
- Support outreach activites
- Develop new ideas for future activities
The Scientific Committee is composed of 22 academic leaders from research centres and academic institutions from around the world, who have an in-depth understanding of humanitarian action and come from a variety of disciplines and cultural backgrounds. This diversity ensures gender, cultural as well as generational balance among participants.
The Scientific Committee’s role is to:
- Validate the annual research agenda
- Guarantee a sound research methodology and ensure quality
- Ensure that research ethical guidelines are respected
- Oversee the editorial process and participate in reviews as members of editorial committees
- Identify and validate authors