Resilience Catalysts: A Hub for Interdisciplinary Resilience

The Resilience Catalysts initiative aims to begin exploring the role of UNESCO Chairs focused on disaster risk reduction and resilience, in the complex interplay between Education, Science, and Culture, to enhancing resilience and mitigating disasters.

The initiative aims to start fostering ongoing dialogue and collaboration among participating UNESCO Chairs.

Our recent webinar explored the vital role of UNESCO Chairs in advancing disaster risk reduction and resilience. Through the intersection of education, science, and culture, these institutions are making a significant contribution to global preparedness and response efforts. Discover key takeaways and insights from this informative event in our comprehensive report.

In our launch webinar, we explored the vital role of UNESCO Chairs in advancing disaster risk reduction and resilience. By leveraging the intersection of Education, Science, and Culture, these institutions are making a significant impact on global preparedness and response efforts. Discover key takeaways and insights from this informative event.

The resilience of school systems and infrastructure that serves them to multiple hazards is the main research objective of the UNESCO Chair on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Engineering (University College London, United Kingdom) mission. A second major objective is to create a global community of practice and improvement of the technical proficiency of colleagues and stakeholders, involved in improving and delivering school infrastructure worldwide.

This first Talk of the Resilience Catalysts Talks Series will illustrate some of the projects and collaborations developed by the Chair since its inception 3 years ago and the identification of future directions of development and opportunities for interaction with other Resilience Chairs.

The UNESCO Chair on Water, Energy and Disaster Management for Sustainable Development (WENDI) at Kyoto University (Japan) provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary graduate-level Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD) in the fields of water, energy, disaster and environmental issues. The course programs for the HESD are provided by Kyoto University researchers across institutional boundaries. The webinar introduces WENDI activities by following five talks and discuss how to enhance international HESD.

The UNESCO Chair on Water-Related Disaster Risk Reduction (WRDRR) at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) undertakes research activities that are an intricate part of joint worldwide efforts to reduce disaster risks and to mitigate their unavoidable consequences. This talk introduces the WRDRR Chair and its activities, covering the analysis of the 2023 floods in Slovenia, structural health monitoring of dams, mitigation of Alpine torrential hazards with a case study from Krvavec, and the NATURE DEMO project on nature-based solutions for climate-resilient infrastructure.

The UNESCO Chair in Informatics and Multi-hazard Risk Reduction (IMRR) aims to co-develop, disseminate and support implementation of informatics technology solutions (e.g., high-performance computing, AI, big data analytics, digital twins) for multi-hazard risk assessment and management, thus enhancing global capacity for disaster risk reduction and sustainable development. The talk will introduce some of the recent research developments and activities of the IMRR Chair, and discuss potential opportunities for collaborations.