Workshop on Humanitarian Logistics Research, Arlington, VA, September 2014

这项奖助金提供经费，主办人道主义后勤研究工作坊。人道主义物流（HL）涉及运输、处理和分配灾难幸存者和灾难响应本身所需的关键物资。如果人口需求得不到满足，或者关键的灾难应对功能（如搜索和救援、医疗援助等）由于缺乏关键物资而减缓或停止，那么低效的人道主义援助就会导致巨大的人类苦难。令人遗憾的是，对这一具有国家重要性的问题的研究数量与其重要性不相称。更严重的是，只有极少数的物流研究人员对HL现实进行研究，具有灾害研究经验的从业者与这些研究人员几乎没有接触，而具有灾害研究经验的社会科学家与HL学者的互动很少。这些重要的利益相关者群体——物流学家、社会科学家和从业者——往往不会共同努力改善HL这一重要领域。本次研讨会的主要目标是通过以下方式解决这一问题：(1)为来自所有相关学科（如社会科学、工程、物流）的实践者和研究人员提供一个关于HL主题的思想和经验交流的论坛；(2)帮助打破通常彼此不互动的研究团体之间的障碍并建立沟通联系；(3)确定研究议程的关键组成部分，以满足HL的基本研究需求。为实现其目标，讲习班将围绕“人道主义后勤的现实”这一主题进行介绍；“人道主义后勤的社会方面；”“人道主义物流分析”和“人道主义物流研究需求”。这些演讲之后将进行分组讨论，以确定研究议程：“人道主义物流的社会科学”和“人道主义物流的分析”。全体会议讨论将综合一个全面的研究议程。研讨会报告将总结所做的工作和讨论的关键见解。最近发生的超级风暴“桑迪”和飓风“艾琳”和“李”的灾难充分证明了这一点，讲习班是一种极具成本效益的方式，可以就具有国家意义的问题收集全世界的专门知识。研讨会将对前瞻性研究的定义产生深远的影响，这种前瞻性研究通过利用来自多个学科的主要学者的专业知识，解决国家的基本研究需求，以提高作为灾害应对程序核心的HL程序的效率。

This grant provides funding to host a workshop on Humanitarian Logistics Research. Humanitarian logistics (HL) is involved with the transportation, handling, and distribution of the critical supplies needed by both the population that survives a disaster, and the disaster response itself. Inefficient HL leads to massive human suffering if the population needs are not met, or if critical disaster response functions-such as search and rescue, medical assistance, among other-slow down, or come to a halt, due to the lack of critical supplies. Regrettably the amount of research on this subject of national importance is not commensurate with its importance. Adding to the problem, only a tiny number of researchers in logistics study the realities of HL, the practitioners that have disaster research experience have almost no contact with these researchers, while the social scientists with expertise in disasters have very few interactions with the scholars in HL. These important groups of stakeholders-logisticians, social scientists, and practitioners-tend not to work together to improve the important field of HL. The main objectives of this workshop are to address this issue by: (1) providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences between practitioners and researchers from all relevant disciplines (e.g., social sciences, engineering, logistics) on the subject of HL; (2) helping break barriers and establish links of communication between research communities that typically do not interact with each other; and, (3) defining the key components of a research agenda to addresses basic research needs on HL. To achieve its objectives, the workshop will be structured around presentations on the topics of "The Realities of Humanitarian Logistics;" "The Social Side of Humanitarian Logistics;" "The Analytics of Humanitarian Logistics;" and "Research Needs on Humanitarian Logistics." These presentations will be followed by breakout discussions to define research agendas on: "The Social Sciences of Humanitarian Logistics" and "The Analytics of Humanitarian Logistics." A plenary discussion will synthesize a comprehensive research agenda. A workshop report will summarize the work done and the key insights of the discussion. The workshop is an extremely cost-effective way to gather worldwide expertise on a subject of national significance, as amply demonstrated by the recent disaster of Super Storm Sandy, and Hurricanes Irene and Lee. The workshop will have a profound impact on the definition of a forward looking research that, by tapping into the expertise of leading scholars from multiple disciplines, addresses the basic research needs of the country to enhance the efficiency of the HL procedures at the core of disaster response procedures.