RSSA partnership of crisis management stakeholders developed a set of free and open tools designed to accelerate innovation in the field. The DRIVER+ project promotes crisis management innovation, capability building and networking in an era of coronavirus pandemic and climate change emergencies.
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The outputs include a methodology and technical infrastructure to assess the added value of new sociotechnical solutions in trial situations, an online catalog of innovative solutions matching identified gaps, a networking platform for crisis management professionals, and a network of centers of expertise to support the community in the use of DRIVER+ outputs. A project video is available here.
Recent months have showed how important it is to be prepared for any disaster, whether natural or man-made. The COVID-19 global pandemic has dominated the health, political and economic concerns in every country around the world with more than 400,000 deaths recorded so far. In December and January, large parts of Australia were devastated by catastrophic, climate change-induced wildfires.
These monumental events have clearly shown the need both for preparedness and innovation. The DRIVER+ research project has played an important part in accelerating innovation in crisis and disaster risk management as part of the wider European Commission’s efforts to improve EU resiliency. One aspect has been a more coordinated approach in an era of increasingly complex, transnational threats. Disasters clearly do not respect borders, never more so than now, and the benefits of an even more integrated crisis management approach across Europe are obvious.
The legacy of the EU-funded project is a set of sustainable outputs for crisis management stakeholders, including practitioners, policymakers, scientific researchers and industry. These outputs were tested and developed in a series of four large-scale crisis scenario trials and a final demonstration, the latter with the active participation of the emergency response coordination center (ERCC).
The trial guidance methodology is an organized approach for assessing crisis management solutions through trials based on realistic scenarios. It is underpinned by the trial guidance tool to guide users through the process of designing, executing and evaluating a trial and the test bed technical infrastructure, which connects solutions and simulates a controlled crisis environment.
The portfolio of solutions is an interactive online database that catalogs innovative crisis management solutions at different technology readiness levels according to a well-structured taxonomy of crisis management functions and gaps. The centers of expertise network aims to support capability development and innovation management, using and updating the various DRIVER+ outcomes. The Crisis Management Innovation Network Europe (CMINE) is an active online community, helping professionals network and share best practices with colleagues and peers, enhancing the shared understanding of crisis management in Europe.
All of these project results were shared at the DRIVER+ Advanced Crisis Management Conference in February.
For more information, to download reports or for details of the trials and project outputs, visit this website.
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