International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)

International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) Educating future leaders in development & delivering innovative research in response to societal needs.

ISS, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam, offers an MA in Development Studies and a PhD programme.

🧩 Can inclusion reproduce exclusion?​Put on your headphones as we explore the next puzzle in the new podcast, The Ontolo...
08/09/2026

🧩 Can inclusion reproduce exclusion?
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Put on your headphones as we explore the next puzzle in the new podcast, The Ontology Lab, hosted by the Crisis, Politics and Law Academic Team at ISS.
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In Episode 2, ISS Associate Professor Karim Knio is joined by University of Amsterdam PhD researcher Daniel Zach Sloman to explore a curious contradiction at the heart of inclusive governance.
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Governments and institutions have spent decades trying to make governance more inclusive. Yet inequality and exclusion persist. Sometimes, Zach argues, the very mechanisms designed to include people can produce new barriers, a phenomenon known as adverse inclusion.
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But before we can decide whether something is inclusive or exclusionary, there’s a more fundamental question to wrestle with: what do inclusion and exclusion actually mean?
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🎧 Listen to our second episode now:
Spotify: https://edu.nl/bqpgr
YouTube: https://edu.nl/ck6vd

👋 Join us in welcoming the 2026-2027 batch to ISS!​Our Orientation Week has concluded and a new academic year has begun....
07/09/2026

👋 Join us in welcoming the 2026-2027 batch to ISS!
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Our Orientation Week has concluded and a new academic year has begun. This year, particularly, brings some exciting first to celebrate.
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📕 Our students are the first to embark on our renewed one-year MA in Development Studies programme, starting an intensive year of learning, exchange and growth at ISS.
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📗 We’re also thrilled to welcome the first cohort of Societies in Crisis: Humanitarian Action and Policy Responses, our new MSc programme offered jointly with The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre and Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (ESSB). The programme brings together perspectives from across disciplines to explore how societies experience and respond to crises.
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📘 We also welcome our new Erasmus Mundus Masters Program in Public Policy - Mundus MAPP students, beginning the first year of their two-year international journey in public policy here at ISS.
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With 23 nationalities represented across our new cohort of students, we’re looking forward to the perspectives, conversations and connections they will bring to our community.
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Here’s to a year of learning, new experiences and making The Hague feel like home!

02/09/2026

🔊 Episode #2 of our new season of 'The Good Humanitarian' podcast in collaboration with The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre is available to listen to!
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When disaster strikes, it can feel sudden. An earthquake. A flood. A toxic spill. A famine. But while hazards may arrive quickly, disasters are rarely as sudden as they seem.
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The scale and intensity of a disaster are shaped long before the event itself, often by political decisions as much as anything else. So what does it actually mean to be vulnerable? And can disasters actually be prevented, or rather, prepared for?
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Professor in Humanitarian Studies at ISS and Director of The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre, Thea Hilhorst joins us for the third episode: 'What’s ‘vulnerability’? And what are we vulnerable to?'. This episode will discuss the cost of not preventing.
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We would also like to know from you, our listeners: What makes a 'good' humanitarian? Leave a comment below or on our podcasting channels.
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Co-hosts: Thomas Ansell and Sarah Njoroge
Production: Saleem Salameh and Gabriela Anderson
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🎧 You can listen to episode 3 on:
🔗 Apple Podcasts: edu.nl/9wp74
🔗 Spotify: edu.nl/bkjm3

🧩 Why do inequalities persist despite decades of education reform?​Put on your headphones or turn up your speakers. We’r...
01/09/2026

🧩 Why do inequalities persist despite decades of education reform?
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Put on your headphones or turn up your speakers. We’re making room for complexity.
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Welcome to The Ontology Lab, a new podcast from ISS, hosted by the Crisis, Politics and Law Academic Team. This is a show where big ideas meet real-world puzzles.
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In our first episode, ISS Associate Professor Karim Knio is joined by Dr Juan D Parra to ask a deceptively simple question: why and how do education systems change?
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Starting with persistent educational inequalities in Colombia, their conversation moves from the concrete to the abstract and back again. What can social ontology reveal that conventional explanations cannot?
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So settle in, get comfortable, and join us for The Education System Fights Back, the first episode of The Ontology Lab.
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🎧 Listen to our first episode now:
Spotify: https://edu.nl/vntuv
YouTube: https://edu.nl/bj4kp

28/08/2026

👋 Hey, new batch! We’re excited to meet you next week.

Check out our welcome message from our staff! 🫶

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🔎 War, climate change, migration, democratic backsliding and AI can look like very different challenges.​But what if und...
27/08/2026

🔎 War, climate change, migration, democratic backsliding and AI can look like very different challenges.
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But what if understanding what is happening isn’t enough?
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At the 2026 Annual Conference of the International Association for Critical Realism, hosted at ISS, researchers asked what happens when we look beneath the events we can see – towards the structures, power relations and conditions that produce and sustain them.
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From climate vulnerability to political economy, the conference explored a deceptively simple question: Are we responding to the symptoms of today’s crises, or understanding what keeps producing them?
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Get ready: that conversation is also continuing beyond the conference with The Ontology Lab, a new ISS podcast exploring critical realism, ontology and the forces shaping our world, releasing next week on 1 September.
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🔗 Read the conference recap to explore what critical realism can bring to some of today’s challenges: edu.nl/tyxmr

Update: Shortly after this post was published, we learned the devastating news of the disaster that struck Nepal and the...
26/08/2026

Update: Shortly after this post was published, we learned the devastating news of the disaster that struck Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. We extend our deepest sympathies to all those affected and their loved ones. We are in touch with alumni in the region and are thinking of everyone impacted during this difficult time.
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🌏 Thank you to our wonderful alumni for gathering with us in Kathmandu!
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Hosted by Professor Andrew M. Fischer, the event brought together more than 20 members of our alumni community. It was wonderful to reconnect with alumni from across Nepal, including distinguished leaders from the judiciary, government and other fields.
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We’re grateful for the continued connection, engagement and support of our alumni community in Nepal.
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Interested in connecting with fellow alumni and hearing about events in your area?
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🔗 Fill out our form to join one of our WhatsApp alumni community groups: https://edu.nl/nb3kv

26/08/2026

🔊 Episode #2 of our new season of 'The Good Humanitarian' podcast in collaboration with The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre is available to listen to!
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Join us for this second season as we explore 'The Cost of Doing Good'.
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When we talk about humanitarian work, we often focus on the outcomes, the aid delivered, the crises responded to, the lives saved or the targets reached. But much less attention is paid to the people doing that work and what it actually costs them to show up every day in some of the most difficult environments in the world. Behind every programme or intervention, there are people making decisions under pressure, navigating uncertainty and often living through the same crisis they are responding to.
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👥 Guests Delu Lusambya (ISS) and Marie Boscher (Danish Refugee Council / Dansk Flygtningehjælp and Plan International Nederland) navigate us through this second episode: 'From Bukavu to The Hague'. Join us as we dive into the cost to humanitarian workers.
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We would also like to know from you, our listeners: What makes a 'good' humanitarian? Leave a comment below or on our podcasting channels.
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Co-hosts: Thomas Ansell and Sarah Njoroge
Production: Saleem Salameh and Gabriela Anderson
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Before listening, please note that this conversation contains themes and descriptions of sexual abuse and exploitation.
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You can listen to episode #2 on:
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🔗 Apple Podcasts: edu.nl/4x9b8
🔗 Spotify: edu.nl/fre7d
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🎓 Congratulations to Dr Delu Lusambya on successfully defending his PhD!​Last week, Dr Lusambya defended on a vital ques...
24/08/2026

🎓 Congratulations to Dr Delu Lusambya on successfully defending his PhD!
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Last week, Dr Lusambya defended on a vital question in humanitarian action: How do aid organizations create space for affected communities to have their voices heard and meaningfully considered in decisions that affect them?
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Focusing on humanitarian governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), his research examines the practices through which the voices of affected communities can influence change in humanitarian governance, helping ensure that humanitarian action better reflects communities’ expectations.
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His thesis offers important insights for public policy and downward accountability practices, contributing to ongoing efforts to make humanitarian governance more responsive to the people it is intended to serve.
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🔗(Re)watch Dr Lusambya's opening introduction: https://edu.nl/97fnv

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