Crisis management topic 7: Crises and disaster resilience – operationalizing resilience concepts

Specific challenge:

To increase Europe’s resilience to crises and disasters is a topic of highest political concern in the EU and its Member States and Associated Countries. This concerns both man-made threats (accidents, terrorism) and natural hazards such as e.g. floods, storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.While the term ‘resilience’ can be described as “The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions.” (UNISDR, 2009), it is necessary to break down and practically apply this definition to the different security sectors. Resilience concepts namely need to be developed for critical infrastructures (supply of basic services like water, food, energy, transport, housing/ shelter, communications, finance, health), but also for the wider public to integrate and address human and social dynamics in crises and disaster situations, including the role of the population, the media, rescuers (staff, volunteers and ad-hoc volunteers). . Resilience concepts need also to take into account the necessity to anticipate, to plan and to implement in the crises time a substitution process aiming to deal with a lack of material, technical or human resources or capacities necessary to assume the continuity of basic functions and services until recovery from negative effects and until return to the nominal position.

Resilience concepts need also to take into account the necessity to anticipate, to plan and to implement a substitution process in a crisis or disaster, aiming to deal with a lack of material, technical or human resources or capacities necessary to assume the continuity of basic functions and services until recovery from negative effects and return to the normal situation. Moreover, as resilience management and vulnerability reduction are closely related, it is necessary to link the on-going efforts link and share EU-wide risk assessment and mapping approaches[1], e.g. physical exposure mapping with relevant resilience management approaches, to ensure that risk assessment is followed by the development of resilience concepts in the various security sectors, based on the results of the risk assessments.

Scope:

Proposals should first survey worldwide approaches how to define, develop, implement and evaluate resilience concepts, including relevant EU sectoral approaches. In a second step, promising implementation approaches and elements should be identified which can be adapted to one or more of the above mentioned critical infrastructures, and/or the public, and assessed regarding their potential to serve as a basis for a general guideline on resilience assessment and implementation. In a third step, such a general resilience management guideline should be developed, linked with the EU Risk Assessment Guidelines, and operationalized in one or more of the security sectors, and/or the public. The successful pilot implementation of the developed guideline need to be demonstrated and tested in an operational environment, e.g. Air Traffic Management, electricity grids, gas transmission networks or space infrastructures, or other appropriate infrastructures.

This pilot implementation should include a dedicated risk assessment and risk management approach, addressing e.g. the issue of cascading effects. Proposals need to show that the proposed research does not overlap with activities proposed under the current “Prevention, Preparedness and Consequence Management of Terrorism and other Security Related Risks” (CIPS) [2] programme and its successor in the Internal Security Fund, and that it is linked to the “European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection” (EPCIP) programme[3] and its new revised approach. Findings from relevant Seventh Framework Programme projects need to be taken into account, and integrated into the research where possible. Furthermore, a close collaboration with the major EU demonstration project on aftermath crisis management (SEC-2013.4.1-1 expected to start in 2014) should be sought, in order to avoid duplication of efforts and to facilitate cross-project contributions.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between €3m and €5m would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact:

-          the development of European Resilience Management Guideline and demonstration through pilot implementation;

-          more efficient uptake of risk assessments through Member States and Associated Countries and Critical Infrastructure Providers; and

-          more effective and coherent crises and disaster resilience management, including improved trainings for rescuers and population engagement.

The action is expected to proactively target the needs and requirements of users, such as civil protection units, first responders and critical infrastructure providers.

Type of action: Research & Innovation Actions

[1]     SEC(2010) 1626 final, Risk Assessment and Mapping Guidelines for Disaster Management

[2]     Decision 2007/124/EC, Euratom, OJ L58 of 24.2.2007 establishing for the period 2007 to 2013, as part of General Programme on Security and Safeguarding Liberties, the Specific Programme ‘Prevention, Preparedness and Consequence Management of Terrorism and other Security related risks’ (CIPS)

[3]     COM(2006) 786 final, On a European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection