Global Humanitarian Studies

Global humanitarian studies is a multidisciplinary field that equips you to understand, analyse, and respond to the major crises affecting populations around the world. It draws on international relations, development studies, public health, environmental science, and law to examine how humanitarian emergencies arise, how they are managed, and what kinds of responses are most effective and ethical. From natural disasters and conflict to forced displacement, climate change, and pandemic disease, the challenges that humanitarian actors face are complex, interconnected, and demand both analytical rigour and practical understanding.

This three-year full-time BSc at University College London is designed to produce graduates who can navigate that complexity with confidence.

You will develop the knowledge and skills to assess threats and vulnerabilities, analyse risks, and design evidence-based responses to international crises. The programme combines theoretical frameworks from multiple disciplines with attention to real-world practice, examining how international organisations, governments, and non-governmental actors coordinate their responses, where their approaches succeed, and where they fall short. Questions of ethics, power, and accountability run through the programme: humanitarian action is never politically neutral, and understanding the contexts in which it operates is as important as knowing the technical tools of crisis response.

A typical entry tariff of 152 points reflects the academic selectivity of the UCL programme. Graduates from global humanitarian studies are well positioned for careers in international non-governmental organisations, United Nations agencies, governmental aid departments, think tanks and policy research, international journalism, conflict analysis, and development consulting. Many continue to postgraduate study in international relations, development studies, humanitarian action, global health, or related fields, using their undergraduate training as the foundation for specialised professional and research careers.