Outcomes of the 5th DRMKC annual Seminar - Towards the science pillar of the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network

The last two years brought significant changes to the risk landscape: the COVID-19 crisis was accompanied by a series of natural disasters that hit Europe and the world especially during summer 2021. Concomitant disasters require from us to oversee, anticipate and manage these crisis in a more coordinated way.

In this evolving risk landscape science has gained a place of honor and become more central to policy making. This is the case particularly for disaster risk management where the role of Science and Policy Interface has become prominent. The 5th DRMKC seminar took place in this context where higher ambitions are expected from Science. 

The annual seminar brought together scientists, practitioners, policy makers and civil protection authorities across Europe to launch a new phase of dialogue between Science and Policy and to start building together the knowledge base for supporting the activities and actions of the Science Pillar of the Knowledge Network. 

At the seminar (report downloadable at this page), we discussed some of the current hot-topics for DRM, like the definition of the Union Disaster Resilience Goals and the design of transboundary, cross-sectorial, challenging scenarios to test them against in the coming years. In this, we should concluded that we be guided by the idea of "thinking the unthinkable": we should not stop at what we have experienced in the past, we should go beyond and reason around what this new society, with its new threats – and combinations of them – might bring us to cope with in the future.

Both COVID-19 pandemic and the developments of climate change impacts are clear signs for the need to go beyond what is considered probable, to be prepared also for what is only plausible. To be so visionary, we need everyone's engagement.

The results of this event, all comments and suggestions, are being carefully considered in the ongoing design of the roadmap of Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network Science Pillar. The 5th DRMKC Annual Seminar was only the beginning of a sustained dialogue, which will be nurtured with the aim of co-shaping with the scientific communities of all Member and Participating States the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network Science Pillar as we go along.

Link: https://drmkc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/events-news/drmkc-annual-seminars/5th-drmkc-annual-seminar