September 15^th 2025 marks the opening of the first edition of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master on Coordinated Humanitarian Response, Health and Displacement (“Human Response”). 20 students from 19 different countries are coming to Lisbon to start their studies in the field of humanitarian action.

This Masters is led by Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon, in partnership with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), in Norway, the Makerere University (MAK), in Uganda, the University of Cape Verde (UniCV), in Cape Verde, the University of Santiago (USant), in Cape Verde, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), in Greece, and the University of Rovuma (UniRovuma), in Mozambique.

This Masters programme aims to provide a unique multidisciplinary programme, uniting universities in teaching about life-saving assistance and displacement in volatile contexts through an educational platform where European and African partners build a resilient global workforce to tackle future humanitarian crises.

Amid ongoing conflict and escalating climate disasters, the Human Response Masters addresses the pressing need for professionalisation of humanitarian workers through:

• a specialized and multidisciplinary post-advance programme (EQF Level 7, two-year, and corresponding to 120-ECTS),
• fostering South-North collaboration and multi-stakeholder cooperation,
• strengthening localized leadership, and
• articulating theory and practice to navigate organizational complexity in humanitarian action.

An impressive first cohort of recent-graduated and experienced professionals from around the world – from Latin America to Asia, including several students coming from African Countries, such as Somalia, Gambia, Uganda, Kenya, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, as well as from Canada and Europe – will meet for the first time ever in person to start their studies in Lisbon, Portugal, and then moving to Norway, and to Uganda. They will also have the opportunity to have a Summer School in Cape Verde for two weeks in June 2026, and can select a country of their interest to develop the Master thesis dissertation in the fourth and last semester.

The Masters is funded by the Erasmus+, and it is an unique opportunity for gathering the global community of researchers, students, experts and practitioners passionate about humanitarian action topics. Iscte and the university partners are committed to a very successful implementation of such a challenging but necessary study program.

The opening and welcoming session will be chaired by the Vice-Rector of Iscte, Professor Helena Carreiras, and will count also with the Deputy-Head of the European Commission Representation Office in Portugal, Doctor Luís Loureiro de Amorim (see AGENDA Human Response Master). Directors of the Master from the 7 partner universities will be also participating in this session, which aims to launch and introduce the Masters to the academic community and to the students, in particular.

At the same day, in the afternoon (from 14.30 to 16.00, Lisbon time), Doctor Jorge Moreira da Silva, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNOPS Executive Director, will deliver a conference on “Delivering sustainable development ambition in a polycrisis context”, which is the inaugural session of an Intenational Conferences Cycle in Humanitarian Action that Iscte is organising alongside with the Masters, under the coordination of Professor Paulo Pedroso, through the School of Sociology and Public Policies at Iscte.