BUiLD Consortium Holds 1st Research Seminar to Kick-Start Multi-Stakeholder Consultation Exercise

The BUiLD Consortium has held the first of regular future research seminars on the 25th June. The seminar brought together researchers in the broad fields of disaster resilience from around partner institutions and the Advisory Group. The seminar was delivered by Advisory Group member Dr Margit Raich.

To kick off the research activities of the group, Margit introduces a focus group exercise that all Indonesian partner institutions will be engaged in over the next few month. This will serve as a formal consultation exercises with key stakeholders to inform the design, creation and formal acceptance of a Centre of Excellence in Disaster Resilience in each Indonesian partner university, which is a core part of the project deliverables.

Key stakeholders include the following: senior university staff; academic, administrative and technical staff; students; local emergency services; local communities; and employers. The process involves focus groups drawn from each of the key stakeholder groups and concentrates on questions around the role of universities in disaster resilience, disaster awareness and training needs, disaster support needs, the attractiveness of disaster management as a career path and expected graduate profiles.

The purposes of this are to inform the creation of institutional action plans and to build local multi-stakeholder networks that can inform, partake and benefit from the future activities of the centres. Activities will include contributions to curriculum development, research and knowledge transfer, disaster awareness training, disaster mitigation and response, fundraising and lobbying to inform policy making. A standard protocol and questions have been set by the Project Management Team to ensure consistency and to create an evidence base for project related needs assessments and impact studies.