Leresche, E., Truppa, C., Martin, C., Marnicio, A., Rossi, R., Zmeter, C., & Leaning, J. (2020).
Conducting operational research in humanitarian settings: is there a shared path for humanitarians,
national public health authorities and academics? Conflict and Health, 14, 1-14.
In humanitarian contexts, it is a difficult and multi-faceted task to enlist academics,
humanitarian actors and health authorities in a collaborative research effort. There are some
challenges in building strong and balanced research partnerships; major issues include:
considering operational priorities, ethical imperatives and power differentials.
First, based on challenges documented in the literature, we shed light on how we negotiated
appropriate research questions, methodologies, bias analyses, resource availability,
population specificities, security, logistics, funding, ethical issues and organizational cultures
throughout the partnership.
Second, we describe how the negotiations required each partner to go outside their comfort
zones. For the academics, the drivers to engage included the intellectual value of the
collaboration, the readiness of the operational partners to conduct an empirical investigation
and the possibility that such work might lead to a better understanding in public health terms
of how the response met population needs.
When academics, humanitarian actors and health authorities collaborate, they deploy their
respective complementarities to build a more comprehensive approach. Barriers such as the
lack of uptake of research results or weak links to the existing literature were overcome by
giving space to define research questions and develop a longer-term collaboration involving
individual and institutional learning. Ultimately, mutual respect, trust and the recognition of
each other’s expertise formed the basis of an initiative that served to better understand
populations affected by conflict and meet their needs.
10 key documented challenges of conducting research in humanitarian settings are
presented. The influence of access to resources and the management of cognitive and moral
dynamics are addressed. Resources include financial means, technical skills, contextual
understanding, operational experience and access to the field. Dynamics refer to building
trust, maintaining transparency, creating shared motivation, and agreeing on ethical
decisions.
1) Using the right methodology based on an appropriate research question constitutes a
significant challenge. 2) Failing to account for bias, study limitations, and lack of statistical
data are also seen as major shortcomings. 3) Specifying the population to be studied in
conflict affected areas (including populations on the move) involves balancing issues of
comprehensiveness and practicality. 4) Measuring the initial health status of displaced
populations is difficult especially in conflicts of long duration where essential baseline
information is usually missing. 5) Securing the functional balance of resources (such as
financial, technical, human, and time) may prove daunting. 6) Adapting methodologies for
field conditions becomes troublesome because lengthy prospective cohort studies or
randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are difficult to conduct in unpredictable and volatile
environments. 7) Constraining research efforts are distortions imposed by issues of security
and logistics. 8) Unstable and unpredictable funding patterns restrain the perceived scope of
research. 9) Ethical issues are complex and in certain situations of marked power differentials
can appear prohibitive. 10) The differences in the analytic cultures of humanitarian as
compared to academic actors constitute yet another type of barrier.
Identifying a research issue of joint interest depended on the individual and collective
capacity to share expertise and allocate time for preparedness. Considerable effort had been
