Institute for Human Security

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What is human security?

Human security represents a post-Cold War paradigm shift from national security to a broader notion of security concerns that focus on people in and across nation-states. The Institute for Human Security at La Trobe University strives to contribute to both the theoretical underpinnings of human security as a framework to make sense of contemporary security concerns as well as provide practical applications and solutions to specific human security issues.

The UN Commission on Human Security has defined it “as far more than the absence of violent conflict. It encompasses human rights, good governance and access to economic opportunity, education and health care.” This is based on an earlier UNDP definition that includes seven clusters, namely economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security (see UNDP Human Development report 1994 [PDF 4.7MB]). These definitions cover the full range of security aspects from the essentials for bare life (food and shelter) to the safeguarding of citizen’s rights to adequate health care and civil liberties.

About the institute

The concern for human security in its broadest definition has a long history at La Trobe University and the Institute for Human Security seeks to enable, enhance and co-ordinate discussion, research, and concrete policy advice from university staff and students across the university for dissemination in academia, the policy sector and to the general public.

The La Trobe University Institute for Human Security is a collaborative, interdisciplinary and University-wide research facility, centred in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, which builds on existing research strength in the university. Its activities will promote the broad aims inherent in the UN definition.

Membership is open to all academic staff whose research fits under the rubric of human security, embracing a variety of non-traditional areas of security. The Institute builds on strengths in international health; food security; new threats to global security; good governance; population movements etc. and works closely with other areas in the University around sustainability and climate change.

The institute is also a member of the Consortium of non-traditional security studies in Asia.