NEWSLETTER n°1 | March 2021

Dear reader,

Welcome to the first newsletter of the RESISTANT Project.

The risk landscape for Europe and its neighbors has been subject to significant
changes over the recent years. Europe and its neighbors face a wide range of
disaster risks, many of which become progressively more prevalent and urgent to tackle. The majority of disaster risks are cross-border that threaten entire regions and can affect multiple countries simultaneously. Professional knowledge and skills are needed by first and second responders to tackle situations involving crisis management systems and infrastructure. This is essential to inform their participation in the initial permitting process, improving resilience and preparedness through enhanced emergency planning, and ensuring appropriate accident management and recovery.

Providing technically accurate and up to date safety information to responders is essential to underpin inherently safer deployment of crisis management technologies and its public acceptance. Given that natural and/or man-made disasters or other crises are often at cross-national borders, the international and in particular cross-border dimension of their handling is crucial. Acknowledging the centrality of the EU's crisis management architecture, in the form of the rescEU program, it is equally important to support rescEU via such measures and initiatives that can mobilize a broader circle of stakeholders to better handle risks and hazards.

I hope you enjoy reading our newsletter and invite you to check our website regularly, follow us on social media or contact us directly for more information.

Yours sincerely,
PROF. DR. Dimitrios Emmanouloudis
COORDINATOR

The RESISTANT Project partners

Seven partners which bring important skills, experience and expertise in the key areas of first responders’ operations, training and communications will ensure that RESISTANT project will be developed with the direct and close collaboration of experienced first responders.

RESISTANT project at a glance

RESISTANT is an EU project co-funded under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism programme and officially launched in January 2021. The project will deploy and test through a series of pilot scenarios in Croatia, Greece and North Macedonia an educational and training infrastructure aimed to train first responders for natural disaster and technological risks prevention and mitigation and to raise awareness and educate pupils from primary and secondary schools, residents of endangered areas, citizens with disabilities, tourists and municipalities’ employees on how to deal with natural disasters and technological hazards.

RESISTANT will also put in place a virtual ‘agora’ for first and second responders, academia, market practitioners, volunteers, and other civil protection stakeholders to share knowledge and exchange best practices, especially in cross-border crisis management. The ‘agora’ will facilitate discussion and contribute towards the development of a common prevention and protection culture.

The aim of the RESISTANT project is to build the first European Crisis Training Platform to train first responders through threefold comprehensive training: educational training with the state-of-the-art knowledge in safety, including tools for characterisation of hazards and associated risks, operational training on mock-up real scale transport, and innovative virtual reality training reproducing the entire accident scenarios, intervention strategies and tactics, including the whole chain of command and communications between all members of the first responders team, facility managers, and public (e.g. volunteer fire fighters, school children, citizens with disabilities).

The proposal focuses on the geographical area of South East Europe as a case study, where already a Network of practitioners, academia, policy makers and civil society representatives is led by the the International Hellenic University. Particular attention is given to cross-border events and their handling and how actions can be taken in complementarity with rescEU.

RESISTANT objectives

RESISTANT aims to satisfy the following objectives as these have been setup by the UCPM-2020-KN-AG call for proposals. For clarity purposes the objectives have divided into operational and strategic:

Operational Objectives

1. Support civil protection and disaster risk management actors that promote and facilitate the development, dissemination and exchange of knowledge, good practices and expertise.
2. Update and expand a training programme through further development of emergency scenarios to reflect the latest state of the art.
3. Implement an educational platform, where educational and training programs for primary, secondary schools, residents of endangered areas, citizens with disabilities of the aforementioned areas and tourists, as well as, for municipalities’ employees, could be demonstrated with the help of Augmented Reality (AR) Techniques.
4. Mapping and status of current initiatives, procedures and resources for coordination, education and training for natural disasters and technological risk mitigation.

Strategic Objectives

1. Support new and consolidate existing partnerships in civil protection and disaster risk management that enhance cooperation and synergies in prevention, preparedness and response.
2. Establish a European network of trainers for first and second responders, supported by stakeholders from EU and beyond, to share best practices and facilitate dissemination of knowledge and experience generated within the RESISTANT project and relevant follow-up projects from EU to national level.
3. Educate and train tomorrow’s responder trainers through established and regularly updated comprehensive educational, operational and virtual reality training.
4. Establish strong links between first responders’ activities from different countries and constituencies and research and educational projects; Valuing the responders’ experience and their feedback to enrich and harmonise harm criteria, models for hazards and risk assessment, expand communications to other stakeholders, including but not limited to legislators, technology experts, insurance companies, citizens and students to raise awareness and increase preparedness.

RESISTANT's Timetable

Project’s starting date: 1 January 2021

Project’s end date: 30 June 2022

RESISTANT's Milestones (MS)

The Union Civil Protection Mechanism Knowledge Network

RESISTANT project is funded under the call “Union Civil Protection Mechanism Knowledge Network: Network Partnership”. This call aims to finance projects that support and enhance knowledge-building, partnership-building and networking under the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network.

Article13 of amended Decision No1313/2013/EU defines the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network as a network of relevant actors and institutions, including civil protection and disaster risk management actors, centres of excellence, universities and researchers, and it outlines its main aims and activities. Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network vision is to strengthen the effectiveness and the efficiency of the collective civil protection and disaster management efforts in all phases of the disaster cycle of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. More information about the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network can be found here.

Article 13 of Decision (EU) 2019/420 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 March 2019 amending Decision No 1313/2013/EU on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism, OJEU N° L 771 of 20.03.2019 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2019:077I:FULL&from=E

Interesting Reads

RESISTANT Consortium has found some publications you may find interesting!

Red Alert-National Red Cross Societies managing disaster risks in Europe, November 2020, Red Cross EU Office

The Red Cross EU Office has developed a new publication, Red Alert, showcasing good practices, challenges and lessons learned by National Red Cross Societies in Europe and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on reducing and managing disaster risks across the region. The examples cover the importance of understanding risks and acting at local level, early warning mechanisms and anticipatory action, the combination of life-saving and awareness-raising actions to increase people’s resilience, continuous efforts to adapt, innovate and test capacities for changing hazards, and how to expand collaboration and partnerships to optimise operational reach, scale and impacts on preparedness and emergency response. The publication is available here.
 

Recommendations for National Risk Assessment for Disaster Risk Management in EU: Where Science and Policy Meet, Version 1

This report is the second in the series of reports “Recommendations for National Risk Assessment for Disaster Risk Management”. It is a key activity of the EC Disaster Risk Management Centre to join national, regional and global efforts to acquire better risk governance structure through evidences, science and knowledge management. Version 0 of this series was focused mainly on how to do National Risk Assessment from the scientific perspective to provide enough evidences to Risk Managers for better understanding and, hence, managing risk. In Version 1, the National Risk Assessment is positioned at the heart of the policy cycle for the implementation of integrated disaster risk management. This perspective highlights the imperative need for policy-makers, practitioners and scientists to work hand-in-hand towards a more resilient, and hence sustainable, future. The report is available here.

Interesting News

RESISTANT Consortium has found some news you may find interesting!

On 8 February 2021, the Council reached a provisional agreement with the European Parliament on a proposal to strengthen the EU civil protection mechanism. The new rules foresee a total of €1 263 million in funds for the 2021-2027 period and up to €2 056 million to implement civil protection measures to address the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, foreseen in the EU recovery instrument. More information is available here.

On 24 February, the European Commission adopted a new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change to prepare for the dangerous impacts of climate change on humans and on ecosystems. More information is available here.

Contact Us

RESISTANT Consortium welcomes comments and contributions by email at: info@resistantproject.eu or online at: http://www.resistantproject.eu/contact/