Case study
Objective
To build the skills of future leaders in social science that encourage emergency responses that are effective, adaptive, contextually informed and based on social and interdisciplinary science and evidence.
Relevance
The Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform (SSHAP) is a programme of work focusing on the social dimensions of emergency responses. It aims to encourage emergency responses which are effective, adaptive, contextually informed, and based on social and interdisciplinary science and evidence. SSHAP’s overarching objectives are to build capacity for social science in humanitarian response globally, and to grow the SSHAP network.
SSHAP believes that future leaders in social science need to be able to apply their knowledge to humanitarian emergencies in locally relevant ways.
The SSHAP Fellowship, a flagship component of SSHAP, contributes to these objectives by bringing together mid-career social scientists and humanitarian and public health practitioners, from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to take part in a process of mutual learning and exploration of the role and potential of social science in crisis response.
Design
The SSHAP Fellowship is a competitive process, with two cohorts a year. To be eligible, applicants must be a national of and currently living in a LMIC and be either a social scientist with research experience or a public health or humanitarian response practitioner in a position to influence design and/or rollout of humanitarian activities.
Once the Fellows have been selected, they attend 12 core weekly online sessions. Preparatory materials are provided before sessions to encourage dialogue around the different themes covered, including political economy, vulnerability and social difference, cultural logic, and a range of more operational-focussed sessions.
Fellows are grouped together with their regional counterpart(s) (resulting in complementary social science and practitioner duos/trios) to complete assignments. This helps to build relationships between the different Fellows, thus growing the SSHAP and IDS network.
With regular meetings with a SSHAP mentor from IDS, the small groups work to co-develop network maps of organisations within their region that SSHAP could reach out to in cases of crisis, as well as an outline for a SSHAP brief based on a mutually chosen humanitarian crisis in their region.
Delivery
The professional development and learning of the SSHAP Fellowship is coordinated and run by IDS, Anthrologica and LSHTM.
IDS SSHAP colleagues include:
- Santiago Ripoll, Research Fellow
- Megan Schmidt-Sane, Research Fellow
- Tabitha Hrynick, Research Officer
- Annabel Fenton, Communications Coordinator
- Annie Lowden, Project Manager
- Syed Abbas, Research Fellow
- Alice Webb, Communications and Impact Officer
- Emilie Wilson, Communications and Impact Officer
SSHAP Partner colleagues include:
- Eva Niederberger, Anthrologica
- Soha Karam, Anthrologica
- Diane Duclos, LSHTM
Participant information
Fellows bring with them a diverse range of experience from organisations spanning research and practice, with roughly a 50-50 split between the two.
Fellows have come from across academia, government, civil society, and international humanitarian response, including, for example:
- Universidad del Valle, Colombia
- Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief and Development (ACBAR)
- Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (AUB)
- Centre for Infectious Disease Research
- World Health Organization
- UNICEF
- International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC)/Red Crescent Societies
- Save the Children
Examples of Fellow job roles from the latest cohort include:
- Assistant Professor
- Medical Epidemiologist
- Research Faculty and Lecturer
- Disability Inclusion Specialist
- Senior Field Assistant
- Refugee Research Program Coordinator
- Study Manager for a mental health study
- Communications and Advocacy Practitioner
- Lecturer and a Medical Anthropologist
- Country Coordinator
Participant numbers
59 social scientists and practitioners from around the world.
SSHAP received 10,073 expressions of interest for the fifth phase of the Fellowship, which runs from May – August 2023.
Of the 1,940 applications that were completed in the fifth phase, there were applicants with 96 different nationalities.
Impact
Beyond the broader impacts of strengthening and growing the SSHAP network, SSHAP Fellows themselves have reported a number of benefits of participating in the programme, as well as the impacts of their learning on their work after the programme.
SSHAP Fellows also gain great benefit from working closely with their peers and leading thinkers and practitioners from within the SSHAP partnership.
Being a part of the SSHAP Fellowship has enabled Fellows to view their work and the humanitarian situations through a broader perspective. This includes gaining a wider appreciation and consciousness of political and economic contexts of conflicts, and the importance of recognising the uniqueness of different contexts.
Fellows have integrated SSHAP learning into their everyday work. For example, one Fellow described how she had put her knowledge from SSHAP to use in training mental health and psychosocial support workers in the response to the conflict in Northern Ethiopia.
Selected partly for their extensive networks, Fellows reported that they not only continued their engagement with their existing networks, but also engaged with new ones as a result of the Fellowship.
Overall, Fellows expressed enjoyment of the programme due to the richness of learning, and the solidarity that comes with engaging with colleagues from all over the world. This is intrinsically valuable, as it validates and motivates Fellows in their work and commitments.
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