Over the past two decades, research and evaluation have become an increasingly central component of humanitarian responses. Monitoring, evaluation, and learning functions are now embedded in most programs, with the goal of not only meeting donor requirements but enhancing service delivery for the most vulnerable. Where most academic-aid research partnerships until recently took place in more stable developing countries, partnerships have become increasingly common in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
Yet the humanitarian sector is facing a moment of deep precarity and resource constraints that threatens this progress. The United States’ massive funding cuts have shut down programs that are a lifeline for millions and have already resulted in preventable deaths. All signs point to a significant medium-term decline in humanitarian funding, as other traditional donors such as the United Kingdom and Germany either cut or are failing to restore funding to pre-COVID levels.
As a result, humanitarian actors are making difficult decisions and prioritizing the preservation of vital service delivery. Research partnerships will become even more essential—yet the same time, cuts in funding and descriptive data generation have impacted universities and key data sources such as the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS). Even as our organizations work to do more with less, the data we rely on to most effectively reach those in need is being dramatically undermined. Local actors along with affected communities—the key frontline responders and implementers (though too often not equal partners) of research projects—remain as many global North humanitarian and research organizations pull back as a result of cuts. Many smaller local organizations have already closed however as a result of the cuts.
Bridging the gap between policy and academia in an era of funding cuts requires rethinking both where our collaborative research efforts are focused as well as ways of working—particularly with local organizations and affected communities themselves. This brief sets out four (non-exhaustive) research areas and three shifts to ways of working for fruitful and policy-relevant collaboration between academics, humanitarians, and conflict-affected and displaced communities. As the humanitarian system grapples over whether it is not just broke, but broken, enhancing our collaboration is essential to ensure sustainable access to critical services and durable solutions.
Research areas:
1. Cost evidence and cost-effective service delivery
As resources dwindle, enhancing the cost effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian responses is our first priority before resorting to cutting essential services. It is no longer enough to know what works—instead, identifying approaches that meet the needs of the most vulnerable and are cost-effective is essential. At the International Rescue Committee (IRC), our teams have made cost effectiveness a key factor in driving what programs we implement. Our Best Use of Resources (BUR) team developed a web-based cost analysis software called Dioptra managed in consortium with eight other organizations that enables us to calculate the full cost per output of program activities and improve cost-efficiency.
The now-wide evidence base of cash assistance as a cost-effective, impactful and empowering modality where markets are functioning is a key example where humanitarians and academics partnered to drive policy and practice-relevant research. Areas where additional research is greatly needed include the cost effectiveness of integrated approaches (programs that combine multi-sectoral interventions such as agriculture support and small business grants for women-led organizations); assessing cost effectiveness over longer time horizons in humanitarian contexts (for example, start-up versus scale costs); and others.
As I have written elsewhere, prioritizing cost-effectiveness involves using resources to maximize impact for affected populations, not simply a utilitarian approach. Providing mental health programming for displaced gender-based violence (GBV) survivors arriving at a remote transit camp can be more expensive than delivering cash assistance. Research that helps maximize effectiveness while ensuring inclusion is essential.
2. Evidence and data generation in fragile and hard-to-reach contexts
Significant strides have been made in advancing causal impact evidence generation in fragile settings and hard-to-reach conflict zones where the vast majority of the world’s displaced live. At the International Rescue Committee (IRC), for example, we accounted for around three percent of the global humanitarian budget as of 2022, but had conducted over 30 percent of impact evaluations in humanitarian settings—many achieved through partnerships with academic institutions. We also extensively partner with academics on qualitative and mixed methods research, and many of our staff come from academic backgrounds. This work helps the sector in testing and refining service delivery. Academics and humanitarians must continue collaboration to test impactful, scalable aid delivery in the conflict-affected contexts where this evidence is most needed.
Descriptive research and observational data generation are equally essential to our work. As authors in the New Humanitarian write, “humanitarian action is driven by data: Statistical information guides decisions on where, when, and how to respond to crises.” The world is facing massive data losses caused by the termination or suspension of funding to FEWS NET, Demographic Health Surveys, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Americas Barometer, to name only some. While the academic sector likely cannot replace these massive initiatives, it is all the more important that the value of descriptive data is emphasized in tenure processes as an essential public good and contribution to knowledge.
3. Lessons for migrant and refugee communities transitioning off aid in developing states
A key critique of humanitarian responses is that they do little to resolve the long term drivers of need or invest in sustainable solutions. In 2023, over 80 percent of the 406.6 million people assessed to be in humanitarian need globally were experiencing protracted crises. The average length of displacement exceeds 20 years for refugees, and ten years for internally displaced persons (IDPs). Humanitarian responses have concurrently extended, serving either the same populations over years or new populations within a country experiencing protracted crisis as acute conflict or natural disasters break out.
More than ever, research on successful examples of transition from parallel humanitarian service delivery to strong and sustainable local systems is essential. Lessons should be learned from countries such as Liberia and Iraq, where while the drivers of displacement and need have not been fully resolved offer some insight on large scale IDP return. Research is essential on practical solutions that put local communities first and that ultimately gear towards the end of humanitarian responses.
It is also essential to understand how access to legal status or durable solutions—key drivers of local integration—are tied to sustainable transition from aid. For example, UNHCR-World Bank research finds that policies that enhance refugee access to the labor market result in significant financial savings for governments and decrease the amount of aid required. Yet from 2013 – 2023, less than three percent of refugees were able to access naturalization/permanent residency in a host country, resettlement in a third country, or safe and voluntary repatriation.
4. Evidence on and ethical/participatory use of new technologies
Finally, an emerging area in research partnerships in humanitarian responses is the use of predictive technologies to anticipate shocks including the onset of conflict, drought, flooding, and population movements to enhance response preparedness. At the IRC, our anticipatory action programming leverages climate forecasting and AI-driven risk monitoring to trigger preemptive interventions, such as cash assistance, before disasters strike. These approaches can reduce the need for large-scale humanitarian responses and mitigate need before it happens.
Much more work needs to be done, however, to ensure that the use of these technologies is ethical and participatory. In the case of predicting population movements or conflict outbreaks, for example, how can this data be accessed and utilized effectively by local communities rather than implemented top down? How can the risks of biased models, data breaches, and negative political responses from governments or conflict belligerents be countered?
Ways of working:
1. Involve practitioners and affected communities sooner rather than later
First, academics should involve practitioners and affected communities themselves at the earliest stages of research design to ensure that studies are grounded in operational challenges and community needs. Humanitarian practitioners bring valuable operational insights, contextual awareness, and a pragmatic understanding of constraints. Their early involvement can help shape research methodologies and ensure that findings are aligned with the realities of implementation on the ground. Moreover, such collaboration can enhance the uptake of research outcomes in programmatic decisions.
By incorporating the perspectives and lived experiences of those directly affected by crises rather than arriving to a community to test an already-designed intervention, researchers can formulate questions that are both contextually appropriate and practically applicable. Early engagement also fosters trust and co-ownership, which can lead to more ethical research practices, better data collection, and more impactful outcomes. For example, IRC teams and researchers at Makerere University, Stanford’s Immigration Policy Lab, and Georgetown University used a co-design approach with refugee communities, local advocacy organizations, and local stakeholders to develop an RCT testing interventions under IRC’s Re:Build program. The program utilizes various approaches including cash assistance, small business groups, and mentorship programs to foster economic and social integration among refugees and host community members in Uganda and Kenya.
2. Meaningful partnerships with local and affected community researchers
Meaningful partnerships with regional and local researchers, whether with universities or local organizations, has always been essential. Now, as international humanitarian organizations withdraw from countries across the world due to funding cuts, these partners can be the only option to continue vital research in humanitarian contexts. The funding crisis offers an opportunity to effect meaningful shifts in where the locus of research sits. Rather than solely implementers, local researchers should be involved as equal co-authors and studies should budget for translation into local languages for better use by communities themselves. IRC has partnered extensively with local universities and researchers across the countries where we work.
It is additionally important to build research partnerships with affected communities. For example, a research study on mental health among Syrian refugees developed collaboratively between policy practitioners at Beyond Conflict, U.S.-based academics, and refugee volunteers at the Jordanian NGO Questscope resulted in both an impact evaluation and a refugee and academic co-authored “field handbook” on practices to address trauma. More organizations such as the Hilton Foundation are funding both refugee-led organizations and research—supporting these efforts is both ethically important and essential as international humanitarians exit.
3. Making data and research transparent and accessible
Finally, recent funding cuts only intensify the resource scarcity facing humanitarian organizations in terms of gaining access to peer-reviewed research. Most individuals at humanitarian organizations can only access journals through other institutional connections (such as university affiliations), and the labor involved in figuring out access can itself be prohibitive. Academics must continue finding ways to get their research findings out from behind paywalls, such as through picking open-source journals or publishing working papers on personal websites. Practitioners and affected communities can work collaboratively with academics to help translate findings into mediums that are accessible—both through literal translation or synthesis into more readable formats.
Conclusion
The U.S. funding cuts and broader retrenchment from notions of global solidarity have had a dramatic impact on displaced and conflict-affected communities. Many have and will continue to die as a result of the freeze, and there is little sign that the world’s traditional donors have the appetite to respond. The broader trends of protracted conflict and total breakdown of rule of law or accountability in conflicts including in Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar, and elsewhere only point to a future of intensified humanitarian need and displacement, even as glimmers of hope emerge from countries such as Syria. While it may be difficult to prioritize research during this time of intense resource constraints, it is more important than ever to redouble our efforts to make research policy relevant, locally grounded, and owned by affected communities themselves.