NEWSLETTER 2-18 FROM HANKEN SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
Celebrating social awareness We all remember the devastating earthquake in the Indian Ocean in 2004. This massive disaster revealed the magnitude of the shortcomings in humanitarian logistics concerning countries as well as organisations. At that point there was an increase in demand for scientific research in that specific area. And as global disasters and their magnitude are on the increase, humanitarian aid and the need for humanitarian logistics is continuously growing. The HUMLOG Institute is a joint research institute between Hanken School of Economics and the National Defence University of Finland (NDU) which celebrated its 10th anniversary on 25 April 2018. The Institute is by now the largest research center in humanitarian logistics worldwide. As a
co-founder of HUMLOG I am very proud of the achievements of our research institute; I am also pleased with how this field of research has developed and gained increasingly more attention around the globe. The values of responsibility, sustainability and equality have become more visible in Hanken’s strategy, but are also on the agenda of students and companies. The theme of sustainability in research was emphasised when Hanken established two new centres of research, GODESS (gender, diversity and equality) and CCR (corporate responsibility) in 2016. These efforts manifest the overall aim of integrating these values in all activities at Hanken, and hopefully will lead to further integration and an increasing awareness in companies and the surrounding society.
K A R EN S P EN S R E C TO R
HUMLOG INSTITUTE AT THE FOREFRONT IN DISASTER RELIEF The HUMLOG Institute at Hanken School of Economics hosted a seminar on 25 April 2018 on current humanitarian challenges and the state of humanitarian logistics. The seminar was arranged in celebration of the institute´s 10th anniversary. In his video keynote, Pekka Haavisto, Finnish MP active in international affairs, emphasised the importance of supporting local structures in times of crises; he pointed out that the needs of beneficiaries have changed over time. - Today social media play a major role in a crisis situation. They are vital for people trying to keep track of their families, so mobile phones are essential, Haavisto stressed. Humanitarian veteran Kalle Löövi, Director of International Operations at the Finnish Red Cross, also highlighted some improvements in the humanitarian field: - Cooperation between relief organisations has increased; this includes small local actors as well as commercial stakeholders in the field. Most importantly, the respect for humanitarian workers is still considerable. The HUMLOG Institute conducts empirically grounded research on logistics and supply-chain management in the humanitarian context and has truly become a hub for humanitarian logistics researchers around the world.