Final Report Summary - PEP (Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management)
Executive Summary:
The project Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management (PEP) was active from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2014. The project addressed future directions for research to enhance public resilience to bring a European ‘enabled public’ closer. Previously, there has been over-much focus on the activities of response organisations and not enough on the perspective of citizens, individuals, groups and communities. To be more effective, crisis management should be seen as coproduced with citizens, applying public empowerment policies which also utilise human technology.
The aim of the PEP project was to investigate how the crisis response abilities of the public can be enhanced and to clarify what public empowerment policies and research priorities can further community resilience. By investigating best practices in educating citizens and working with communities, taking their point of view into account, the project identified key enablers for public empowerment. In addition, the project clarified how authorities can successfully involve social groups and communities in crisis preparedness and response. Promising developments in the use of social media and mobile services were described including a human technology approach, taking preferences and public acceptance into account.
The status of empowerment initiatives and the challenges involved in cooperation between response organisations and citizens were investigated in various desk studies, an online international expert-questionnaire, interviews with local authorities and citizen groups, and focus group interviews with citizens. The results indicate that although the value of a community approach is seen by the experts, the picture of the actual implementation of a community approach in crisis management is very diverse and in need of further encouragement. Preparedness campaigns that are initiated as top-down activities are not effective. Instead, best practices connect with citizen initiatives. Moreover, on the local level, inclusion of local initiatives is seldom structured.
The project clarifies best practices and shows guidelines in the form of an accessible tool, the ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’. Dialogue about the research results was initiated via the International Disaster and Risk Conferences in Davos. An open call of the refereed journal Human Technology led to the publication of a Special Issue on ‘Community resilience in crises: Technology and social media enablers’.
The project PEP also focused on policy recommendations. The report ‘Roadmap public empowerment policies for crisis management’ advocates clear directions for further action of public empowerment policies for crisis management in the areas of practice, policymaking and research.
Without structural inclusion of the public in resilience enhancing activities, the increased expectations of citizens of two-way communication will not be met. Public empowerment and collaboration of authorities with publics in the security area contribute to relationships of trust, however they are also a ‘sine qua non’, an essential condition the member states can’t do without.
The website www.projectPEP.eu offers the ‘Crisis communication WIKI for Professionals’, research outcomes and the ‘Roadmap public empowerment policies for crisis management’.
Project Context and Objectives:
PEP is a support project that outlines directions for further research and implementation in Europe enhancing the crisis response abilities of the public. It provides recommendations based on a dialogue with crisis management experts and researchers.
Empowering the public to be better prepared for crises seems a logical way to strengthen crisis management, although in the past resources have been focused mainly on the activities of response organisations. Nowadays research shows and authorities have realized that the problems created by crises cannot be solved by response organisations alone, and that the behaviour of citizens can contribute to, or otherwise influence, crisis prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. Informed and well prepared citizens know how to react and respond to crisis and are able to support neighbours or responders, thereby helping to reduce primary and subsequent harm and damage. In this way, the project addresses important societal needs and challenges.
Some authorities may refrain from including citizens on the assumption that citizens are likely to panic in crisis situations. Research, however, has shown that this is usually not true and that, in fact, most lives are saved by the actions of ordinary citizens. As well-intended actions may also put volunteers in danger, this calls for protecting them through preparedness education. This leads to the obvious conclusion that complex evolving crises can only be solved through collaboration.
A general goal of crisis management is prevention and reduction of harm or damage. This is supported by the communication goals set for citizens: empowerment to act, social understanding of risks and increased cooperation. The role of communities in crisis response needs to be further strengthened, with the help of human technology supporting preparedness, and the issuing of instructions and sharing of information in crisis situations.
The cooperation of citizens is needed at all phases of crisis management. For example, not all people impacted by a crisis can be reached immediately by responders, so that the behaviour of ‘ordinary citizens’ is crucial at that stage, becoming civilian first responders; equipping citizens with appropriate skills and tools will do much to enhance their abilities in this role. Thus, the role of communities in crisis response can be enhanced, while technology can facilitate sharing of information.
Crisis management is challenging and response efforts can only be successful with civilian cooperation. Cooperation needs communication, and with that we do not only mean technical devices and means as in ‘communications’, but foremost communication as in dialogue, building relations with stakeholder groups through interaction. Communication policies should be developed that lead to public empowerment and a culture of preparedness. Moreover, ‘enablers’ of human resilience are not devices as such, but rather communication policies that also include human technology, with long term effects in building trust and self-efficacy among the public. By appropriate communication policies the cooperation of response organisations with the public and the crisis response abilities of the public can be enhanced. This calls for a multidisciplinary approach that has at its core expertise from communication science combined with expertise from information technology, and from the social and behavioural sciences.
Dissemination in this project includes raising awareness of key enablers to enhance the crisis response abilities of the public, not only among various organisations, including authorities, but also by bringing experts together to react to outcomes of the studies and help identify promising areas for further research and implementation. To facilitate this, a web platform was implemented and an international symposium connected to a well-known bi-yearly conference organised.
The consortium consisted of two university teams including communication science, technology and social sciences, and three end user organisations (one research consultancy, one SME consultancy and a public body) with extensive experience in the field and a good network with the relevant stakeholders and response organisations.
The goal of this project is to develop knowledge about key enablers for public empowerment which will help authorities improve crisis resilience, and to show promising areas for further research supporting human resilience.
To meet this overall goal the project has three objectives:
1. To identify potential key enablers for public empowerment for crisis management,
by various studies:
A) providing a broad overview of best practices in how authorities currently enhance human resilience, what strategies and tools are used to enhance individual, family and community crisis response, and insight in how much attention is given to public empowerment policies;
B) clarifying in depth how community approaches, involving local social groups in crisis preparedness and response, are used, including experiences and success factors e.g. how to connect with community needs;
C) assessing how and what technologies can enhance human resilience in crisis situations taking perceptions and social acceptance of the technologies and services into account.
2. To construct a roadmap charting promising areas for future research and development, and implementation supporting human resilience, by bringing together current expertise and research activities showing gaps and recommended directions.
3. To ensure dissemination of the project results in order to raise awareness of the importance of public resilience, and how this can be achieved, among relevant stakeholders.
The concept underlying this project ‘Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management’ links the above objectives together. The first three objectives are needed to create a basis for the roadmap and the online materials for dissemination of the project results.
To gain a better understanding of the status of empowerment initiatives and identify chances and challenges various research methods were used:
- a literature review on the role of communication in enhancing community resilience and citizen response,
- an online international expert-questionnaire,
- a desk study to find best practices of empowerment policies,
- a second literature review, followed by interviews, to better understand the cooperation between local authorities and citizen groups,
- a desk study addressing e.g. technology acceptance models,
- focus group interviews to clarify how citizens look for information in the case of a crisis and what this tells about the possible contributions technology could bring.
- analysis of the database of the International Disaster and Risk Conferences (IDRC) in Davos to identify trends in community resilience and how this is supported by technology.
The project clarified concrete measures that can be taken by authorities and other response organisations in the European Union member states and associate states. It delivered guidelines on how a community approach can be effective in strengthening abilities and social structures for resilience, and how technologies can strongly contribute to enhancing public resilience. Additionally, the project resulted in a roadmap that reports challenges that need additional policymaking in order to further community resilience.
Project Results:
Workpackage 1 concerned best practices. A literature study spanning 10 years of refereed articles revealed that community resilience and citizen response have gained interest, and that a resilient community is more and more seen as an important asset. This review of scientific literature focused on how communication contributes to community resilience and citizen response.
In addition, a desk study into best practices found in open and online sources was undertaken, resulting in an overview of inspiring projects to enhance public preparedness and response that was further analysed. The projects were described and ranked, to offer a ‘Catalogue of opportunities’ to inspire response organisations.
Furthermore, an expert-questionnaire on enablers for public empowerment had been conducted online. The results showed that the status of empowerment initiatives varied much in the European countries, and pointed out challenges experienced in practice.
Next, based on the report and the earlier outcomes, guidelines for enabling public empowerment were compiled.
Workpackage 2 investigated the community approach in crisis management. A preparatory desk study was undertaken that formed the basis for an interview study. The results were reported and turned into guidelines for improved cooperation of municipalities with local citizen groups.
Obstacles for collaboration on the local level between response organisations and citizen groups relate, on the one hand, to limited resources and unclear allocation of responsibilities for cooperation with diverse citizens groups. On the other hand, people prefer to participate in collective efforts through the groups and institutions in which they normally participate, rather than through forms of collaboration created specifically for crisis and disaster management.
Workpackage 3 focused on technology supporting public empowerment in crises. A desk study was delivered, including a discussion on acceptance models of technology. For this workpackage a section on social media was included in the questionnaire of work package 1, and the results were analysed and reported. Furthermore, focus group interviews were conducted to clarify what information people look for in crisis situations and how this is facilitated by technology. The final report of this workpackage also includes some additional desk and case studies. The conclusions were turned into guidelines for technology enhancing community resilience.
Citizens use multiple communication technologies and channels to acquire, receive and share information about crises and emergencies. The progress of events is often followed via the media, while confirmation is sought from various other sources. Authority sources are consulted less if expected not to be continuously updated, while especially information shared by close-ones would have high credibility.
Workpackage 4 concerned the process towards the roadmap and an international symposium in 2014. The activities began with a kick-off workshop during the International Disaster and Risk Conference (IDRC) 2012 in Davos. Expertise of other projects on related topics was mapped, and conclusions on research trends were reported. Based on expert-interviews the results of the previous three workpackages had been validated and the challenges experienced in practice were further discussed to identify policies needing attention to be able to further community resilience. This led to conclusions and recommended directions for practice, policymaking and future research that were presented in the IDRC Davos 2014 conference, and on an online discussion FORUM of the project. Finally the roadmap was compiled.
Workpackage 5 concerned dissemination and includes the web platform www.projectPEP.eu its marketing and other dissemination activities. The web platform includes the ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’, the guidelines on public empowerment for crisis management, the roadmap and other reports.
Workpackage 6 concerned project management including, among other things, project coordination and quality control, as well as arranging consortium meetings, teleconferences and review meetings.
Below we provide a short version of the roadmap, see www.projectPEP.eu for the full text.
ENHANCING PUBLIC EMPOWERMENT: DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICE, POLICYMAKING AND RESEACH
Nowadays crises are seen as long processes, rather than events focusing solely on warning and early response. Moreover, more actors are involved in co-creating resilience, and risk and crisis management call for attention on the local, national and international levels. An integrated approach is needed that engages all authorities, citizens and stakeholders involved. This underlines the importance of public empowerment policies.
In the below directions for practice, policymaking and research are discussed.
PRACTICE
In practice, empowerment strategies can be built on various elements that have been reported as effective in the literature and found in our empirical research. A robust approach is needed on many levels, as will be explained further in the following sections on cooperation with citizens, public preparedness and response, and technology enhancing citizen response.
-Cooperation with citizens-
After years of specialization, the quality of the rescue services in many European countries is very good and citizens rely on them. However, major crises call for a strong citizen response as well, and the administrative mindset does not yet seem to be ready for that. The scope and depth of collaboration with public groups differ greatly across authorities. Collaboration with well-known organisations of volunteers is already embedded, but many other citizen groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) exist that could increasingly be included in resilience efforts.
Local authorities in particular are expected to take more initiative in connecting with civil sector groups that can contribute to crisis response or preparedness, such as volunteers, who can be organized to a greater or lesser extent. In municipal crisis plans, traditional NGOs may be involved, such as volunteer fire brigades or the local Red Cross. However, a wider approach may be utilized to include available resources in various forms, including social capital.
Such resources can be identified and further developed in integrated intervention maps, following a whole community approach involving public organisations, citizen groups, NGOs and private companies in the area. A broad look at the available resources is recommended, especially in rural areas where, for example, farmers and local companies may be asked to help clear roads after storms or strengthen dams. Similarly, on a regional or national level public-private collaboration needs to be further developed, for example, in collaboration with vital infrastructure companies. This calls for joint mapping of resources before a crisis happens, and preparedness in how to reach contacts in crisis situations.
After consideration of how the results of mapping can be used in crisis management, the social capital identified may include the competences and communication connections of parties on the local, regional or national level. Local authorities can utilize their connectedness with health care and education where these may serve as bridges to the public. Doctors and schools, along with religious communities, have high trust relations with citizens that can facilitate preparedness of the latter. Regional and national authorities often have strong links with associations and special interest groups. The last-mentioned can help take the special needs of public groups into account, including, for example, pregnant women, the elderly, people with disabilities and minority groups.
Building societal resilience in an interactive and inclusive way involves more actors than the rescue services, which primarily supply specialised emergency capabilities. Although, among citizens, the trust basis of rescue services may be high, the collaborative work needs additional competences and the involvement of other administrative bodies. In a time of economic constraints, it is hard to prioritise budgets for empowerment-related tasks. However, insights into how collaboration can be strengthened have increased and there is a growing number of best practices that can inspire crisis management authorities.
-Public preparedness and response-
Public preparedness can be enhanced by preparedness education. Top-down campaigns are less effective than initiatives with citizen involvement. Citizens can be involved in crisis planning and exercises, and schools further included in preparedness activities. The communication policy should include multiple communication channels. During crises, monitoring of social media facilitates answering information needs and rumours, and follow-up, if the instructions provided have proven effective.
Current crises are often complex and can develop in unexpected ways. Therefore, preparedness is not helped so much by learning fixed responses for various detailed scenarios, but rather by enhancing understanding of risks and strengthening competences and skills that are helpful in a range of emerging crises. An all-hazard approach is recommended facilitating resilience to various hazards, and especially those that have a high likelihood in the region involved.
As a community approach goes beyond one-way communication, a broad strategy relates to working with intermediary groups and stakeholders, including interest or minority groups, NGOs and private companies, on the local, regional and national levels. In this way, safety is co-created in a broader network than the traditional response network. On the local level collaboration can begin by exchanging activities and insights by various groups to see what activities are already in train and clarify local risks, for example, by making local risk excursions.
Preparedness campaigns organised by authorities in a top-down approach without active public involvement are usually not effective. Authorities can better connect with ongoing citizen initiatives and create strong community involvement through public education campaigns. Moreover, public interest in preparedness information is often low, rising when a potential crisis unfolds. This leaves a limited timeframe for preparedness action. Other strategies for preparedness education are based on involvement of intermediaries, such as local health institutions and schools. Preparedness education should also be part of school curricula.
Recently, the use of social media in crisis communication has received much attention. However, it should also be noted that the role of the news media is strong in disasters and emergencies. News reports are followed more actively in times of crisis and a large proportion of retweets in fact concern news media messages. Furthermore, the importance of face-to-face meetings and direct contacts between authority representatives and citizens should be underlined.
Many people may not be aware of how important their knowledge and skills could be in coping with emergencies, as they tend to rely on being able to retrieve information on such occasions from sources such as internet websites or apps. However, in power outages, only preparedness helps. This makes it important to have dedicated preparedness websites that are easy to access for those moments when people, because of a crisis in another country or at an early stage of a crisis, are still able and also motivated to learn how they might be able to cope with an evolving crisis situation.
When assessing the results of crisis exercises, emphasis should be put on evaluating the collaboration with citizens. During crisis situations, it is important to involve those sources, people and organisations that are trusted by different groups in the population. To arrange and canalise public help, information and communication technologies (ICT) may be used, for example, as a tool for the recruitment, development and maintenance of the voluntary public.
-Technology enhancing citizen response-
Technology creates opportunities for citizens to communicate with authorities and vice versa, as it can facilitate fast exchange of information in crisis situations. In the future, open and closed crisis mapping systems will co-exist. In open systems, filtering is needed for quality control, while privacy protection and misuse of systems must be taken into account. Crisis management apps should be integrated into citizens’ daily life, but should not increase feelings of insecurity.
The levels of supporting technology of authorities in different countries are diverse, and in many cases the new technologies are still used for one-way sending of messages. Information relayed by citizens can be seen merely as an add-on to already well-developed internal authority crisis-mapping systems, but also as an opportunity to co-create a fuller picture of the situation in a system that is also open to citizens. In the future, diverse closed and open crisis mapping systems will probably co-exist. Open systems, for example those that show citizen messages on a map, need filtering for privacy protection and prevention of misuse. Naturally, citizens will expect a follow-up on the messages they post.
Current attempts in developing social media platforms for crisis mitigation are fragmented and strategies are needed on how these social media platforms can foster public engagement in all the phases of a crisis. Crowd mapping can provide live information maps that show citizens safe places. Crisis mapping in open systems is also being developed to include high numbers of smaller urban incidents. However, this could increase feelings of insecurity as it confronts people with many, often irrelevant, notifications. Instead, apps for localized warnings and integration of crisis-related messages in wider apps, such as weather apps and road planners, should be considered. As new technology is developed rapidly, authorities need to focus on its functionality.
All interactive use of technology requires preparations before a crisis situation occurs, as citizens need to become acquainted with the tools and, for example, take out subscriptions for apps and become a follower in Twitter or friend in Facebook. It also requires cooperation, for example, asking citizens and organisations to use the same hashtag when tweeting information about a particular crisis. Initiatives for sharing information during crises are increasingly being taken by groups of trained digital volunteers.
To promote interactive use of online platforms for collaboration between authorities and citizens, it is important to understand that communication via social media and mobile services is initiated by response organisations and citizens for different purposes. For cooperation to be successful, a win-win situation should be created, where the motivations of publics and authorities converge or both gain benefits from the functionalities of the platform. For example, response organisations may aim to educate, give instructions or ask citizens for assistance, while citizens may want to know what’s happening, report to others on what is happening in their own vicinity or exchange emotions. The development of interactive technology for public empowerment requires an integral approach, entailing understanding of why and how different users may want to employ it, and making the solution accessible and inclusive, and possibly part of the user’s everyday life.
The continuous evolution of technology will bring new opportunities as well as challenges in the field of crisis management and communication. As consumer electronics become more and more ubiquitous, the possibility exists that the gap between the technologies available to the public and the capabilities and resources of the authorities to exploit the latest means will widen. Next, we present some issues that are likely to characterize the field over the next few years.
The younger generations, who are more information technology literate, may take over related responsibilities within authorities as well as citizen groups. This could help promote shared understanding of technological solutions and awareness of how empowerment can be integrated into the development processes.
The mobile phone has transformed into an immediate smart interface with local or remote data and information. Intelligent sensors are increasingly being embedded into these devices, enabling an increase in citizens' participatory sensing. This means that in the years to come any (urban) environment will be monitored by thousands of smart devices also during crisis situations. How this massive information load can be rapidly collected, analysed and presented to decision makers will become an important issue.
In social media, a trend towards more security and privacy concerning ways of working among the general public can already be observed, e.g. people moving from Twitter to various closed applications such as WhatsApp, an instant messaging tool. If the public continue to use more closed and more diverse forms of group communications, this will have the effect of scattering the information available and make it harder for authorities to access citizen information during a crisis situation.
Another cause of global concern entails issues of cyber-security that may hinder the development of communication between public and private actors. In developing preparedness for possible cyber emergencies, the empowerment of the public is important. If and when the overall communication infrastructure is compromised, there still remain the innovative solutions of citizens' groups, which should be strengthened by supporting empowerment.
-Motivation, main aim, strategy and proposed directions-
The motivation to create public empowerment policies in the area of practice is based on the fact that the level of development of initiatives for community resilience and citizen response is very diverse across the EU and in many places low. The main aim for doing this is to include the thus far under-used resources of civil society groups and private organisations that may enable coping with crises.
In light both of the diverse levels already achieved and the interest observed among authorities in further developing this work in practice, we propose a strategy for facilitating the exchange of best practices that includes citizens in preparedness and response. This should help to counter misperceptions such as the panic myth and clarify how cooperation processes can be arranged.
In addition, we propose the following future directions for the area of practice. When stimulating public empowerment activities, one should ensure that activities on one government level accord with those on another level and that they do not contradict each other. As explained before, it is important to connect with local or other citizen initiatives, and to have an inclusive multi-stakeholder approach.
POLICYMAKING
As resilience to crises is crucial in today’s society, the level of involvement of public groups needs to increase fast. However, there are several problems to overcome, for which attention in practice is not enough and that need policymaking to create more impact.
- Attention to public preparedness and resilience-
The status of public empowerment initiatives in crisis management is very diverse across Europe. Public preparedness has received insufficient attention in many places, although good practices also exist that build on local citizen initiatives and, for example, link with the UNISDR campaign ‘Making cities resilient’.
In addition, to include resilience from a public empowerment perspective, a sector-wise approach can be undertaken, for example, in the health sector, on various policy levels. Different government sectors can look into the consequences for their ways of working of adopting an empowerment approach in collaborating with citizens and engaging with other stakeholders to increase societal resilience. This may also lead to training and education materials for specific sectors. In the different sectors stakeholders can be stimulated to contribute to preparedness by financial and other incentives.
Civil participation needs to be ensured in all phases of a crisis. Concerning the implementation of preparedness activities and of response activities, a good start has been made in various places. But it also needs to be ensured that civil society actors and citizen groups are included in decision making on the prioritization of the risks to be prepared for, and reconstruction activities in the aftermath of a crisis, e.g. by participative decision making.
-Community resilience at various policy levels-
Next to attention to the individual level of preparedness, collaboration with civil society actors and community groups needs to be strengthened. A sustainable, approach systematically acknowledges social networks and social fabrics. Civil society actors should also be included in the policymaking for societal resilience, for example, in disaster risk reduction (DRR) protocols.
It is often unclear where on the different government levels responsibilities for public empowerment lie and how the national level supports the local. The concern here is how the local, region and national authority levels contribute to societal resilience. Defining roles and responsibilities on these levels needs to be emphasised, similarly in the collaboration with citizen groups.
It is clear that the leadership of local authorities is needed to increase community resilience and public response. However, inclusive approaches are not only expected on the local or municipality level. For example, on the national level collaboration with civil society groups and associations can be initiated so that the needs of special groups are taken into account, for example, ensuring accessibility norms for security applications. On the (inter)national level norms for the use of crowdsourcing could also receive attention, for example, ownership of data gathered (rescue services or software companies involved), and codes of conduct.
The EU knowledge centre on humanitarian aid could host a catalogue of free solutions and best practice materials that enable community resilience and citizen response. This would also make related free services developed by EU projects easier to find (for example, the PEP ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’).
Currently, expectations on the role of the municipalities are high, which relates to more policy themes than security. For municipalities their links with the local health and education institutes offer chances, but there are also challenges in developing resilience. One of the major challenges for collaboration between municipalities and NGOs is the lack of common meeting platforms and, in consequence, low degrees of interaction between voluntary groups and municipal representatives.
An additional challenge facing future collaborative efforts is the fact that at present most of the collaboration between the voluntary public and municipal representatives takes place between traditional organizations. Policies are needed to create common platforms, e.g. through joint exercises with established NGOs and new network-like forms of organizations supported by ICT.
At the municipal level, inclusion of NGOs now often depends on personal contacts, and hence policies are needed to ensure their continuation and make such initiatives not coincidental but structural. It should be clear in what way enhancing resilience, taking the role of social networks and social fabrics into account, is seen primarily as a task of rescue services, the broader municipality and/or others.
Members of NGOs may be willing to take responsibility for handling specific tasks, but the challenge is how to satisfy the needs of the municipal representatives and at the same time address the diverse interests and ambitions of the NGOs. New possibilities are being created to reach out to, and gather, people as well as disseminate information, not only by authorities, but also by NGOs and individuals themselves. Also, local NGOs may not have the resources to build and use digital tools. Municipalities need to develop policies on how to use digital media, both to communicate with NGOs and the general public, and in other areas of crisis management, e.g. education and training.
One of the challenges experienced at the local level is related to the transfer of contacts and knowledge between people and generations. Traditional NGOs are often dependent on older age groups, while young people and minority groups are often underrepresented. An inclusive policy is needed to ensure that younger generations, as well as a diverse public, are engaged in different volunteer activities to ensure long term engagement and knowledge transfer, e.g. by engaging people from various age groups and with different skills and experiences. Differences in the resources and habits of citizens in a diverse society characterized by multi-ethnicity, social and educational gaps and ability to use new communication technology must be considered by municipalities.
Yet another challenge is posed by new forms of voluntary commitment, such as loosely connected networks of individual non-organized volunteers and the structural difficulties these bring in their train. This includes insurance and financial compensation during voluntary commitment, as well as how to secure the competence and skills of the volunteers, and how to recruit volunteers. Therefore, policies are needed that solve such needs, and especially the need for insurance.
-Diversity and policy making-
Diversity in the population calls for a differentiated approach in implementing cooperation with citizens. Collaboration may focus on different matters, and different communication means and approaches may be utilized that take risk perceptions and, for example, trust in authorities into account. Although cultural aspects and differences call for specific approaches, ways can be found to make efficient use of expertise gained in different countries. In particular, regions with a similar risk profile could exchange experiences and deploy similar ways of engaging citizens in crisis preparedness.
Local and cultural aspects, social economic conditions and traditions shape the impact of disasters. Risk perceptions, disaster experience and trust in authorities can be very different among different population groups, and risks are not equally divided over public groups. Attention also needs to be paid to inclusive approaches in cross-border crisis management, and when assistance is offered across borders it should connect with what local communities need and, to be an ethical response, take diversity into account. Similarly, media use habits, trust in media and being acquainted with various technologies differ.
Although diversity clearly needs to be taken into account, this does not mean that sharing experiences or utilizing approaches used elsewhere is impossible. Some regions may have more in common with others abroad than with neighbouring regions in the same country. In particular, exchange of policies can be useful among regions with a similar risk profile. These regions could consider utilizing similar ways of engaging citizens in crisis preparedness, for example cities near a river vulnerable to flooding, mountain regions with similar erosion risks, or industrial areas with intensive farming and animal-disease or chemical risks. This includes how citizens can be asked to participate in gathering data on interactive platforms, and in re-construction of the area after a crisis situation has occurred.
-Motivation, main aim, strategy and proposed directions-
The motivation for directing attention to this topic in the policymaking area is that a community approach to crisis management is, thus far, only visible in a fragmented and not structured way. It often depends on single individuals whether such an approach has been taken up or not. Therefore, the main aim is to strongly stimulate the attention of policymakers and remove the barriers for bottom-up collaboration in crises.
Components of the recommended strategy include strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction initiatives by a clear emphasis on community resilience, involving various sectors in a human-centred approach, in a way that is sensitive to cultural-specific requirements and diversity in society.
The proposed directions for policymaking concern the following. Continued attention to community approaches in risk and crisis management can be provided in multiple ways, also including public-private collaboration and implementation of community principles in various sectors. The contribution and inter-relatedness of the different governmental levels involved, need to be clear. Cross-border exchange of insights adds value among regions with similar risk profiles, such as mountain regions with erosion problems, densely populated city areas and riverbanks prone to flooding.
RESEARCH
The research needs mentioned in this section relate to knowledge gaps found in the literature and challenges experienced in practice or policymaking that call for research.
-A focus on resilience and citizen perspective-
There is a need for studies focusing on community resilience and citizen response. The main interest of earlier studies in the security field has been, for example, in response organizations’ strategies and tactics, rather than in the needs and actions of citizen groups in crisis situations. To enhance community resilience and citizen response, further research should be done to understand crises in greater depth from the viewpoint of citizen groups and clarify the role of the latter in crisis response, for example by investigating modes of collaboration in detail and scrutinizing barriers to collaboration that have occurred in recent crises.
Previous security projects have primarily related to citizens by addressing one-way information, for example contributing to improved warnings, or communication among response organisations, while improving crisis communication in two-way interaction with the public, with the aim of enhancing community resilience, has received attention in just a few projects, and thus remains in need of further research efforts.
Crisis communication is often viewed from the perspective of authorities, rather than citizens. Similarly, papers linking crisis communication and social media have rarely focussed on how individuals deal with crises in social media contexts. Future research should clarify the self-organization activities and capabilities of citizens, so that response organizations can better connect with this. In addition, barriers to collaboration can be further clarified.
In practice, older ways of segmenting target groups by demographic characteristics have been left behind and replaced by an approach focusing on “rings” of involved people. In a crisis situation, those directly affected were considered part of the inner ring, while other rings consisted of those who were indirectly involved, for example through mass media. Now that social media contacts facilitate fast communication from those directly involved to others, the segmentation of target groups seems to have become more difficult. This indicates a need for further research.
Similarly, it has been shown that top-down campaigns are less effective than activities that originate from a bottom-up approach. However, it remains unclear what aspects of inclusion of citizen initiatives explain this difference, and how elements of both approaches can be combined.
Many publications refer to the need for bilateral collaboration between authority organisations and citizen groups, while failing to build a more complete picture of the interplay in a multi-actor network of governmental, non-governmental and private organisations, with various more or less loosely connected individuals.
Furthermore, there is a need for empirical data on the use of social media tools for collaborative data gathering. This can obviously include quantitative approaches, but qualitative approaches from the perspective of multiple users with different objectives for their participation are also needed.
-Coproduction competence-
The crisis communication competence of both experts and citizens needs to be further studied. Coproducing safety necessitates the spanning of boundaries. This requires competence in interpersonal communication and social interaction from the experts working in response organizations. Also, the citizens involved in crises need multifaceted crisis communication competence. There is a need to better understand what kind of crisis communication competence is required from experts and citizens alike, and how this can be developed, including through informal learning. In addition, cultural differences in crisis communication competence and learning should more profoundly be taken into account.
In the community approach to crisis management, citizen groups are not seen merely as target groups, but instead as active co-actors in response to emergencies. The importance of collaboration between response organisations and citizens has been underlined, however only few studies have been done on the related competence needed in crisis management, in order to coordinate and facilitate cooperation between experts and citizens.
Similarly, research could further clarify the specific competence needed by citizens to enable them to mitigate crises together. Studying crisis communication competence would be helpful for community resilience in the future, especially if seen as networked competence rather than an individual characteristic.
-Integral approach to crisis communication-
Research on crisis communication in emergencies and disasters has focused excessively on case studies of specific crisis events. Similarly, the focus has often been on the use of a single social media application in a particular crisis. Consequently, there is a need for an integral approach. This also relates to research into the development of security-related tools for interaction with citizens, where the budget has primarily been focused on the production of the requisite tools, while content and multiple users with different motives have been under-investigated.
An integral approach is needed in research to acknowledge that crisis communication is co-created in a network comprising response organisations, other public and private organisations, citizen groups and individual citizens. The perspective of multi-actor networks adds value to the traditional focus on response organisations alone, or studying response organisations collaborating with citizens. It connects with the ‘whole community approach’ mentioned earlier and underlines the diversity of the groups and individuals involved.
A literature search of refereed articles showed a trend towards focusing on particular crisis events. One reason for this may be support from research funding sources inviting research after an event, such as the September 11 attacks, or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This is visible as a peak in related studies some years after a crisis event, as call and review procedures take time. Leaving the case situation to be investigated more open in the call stage could result in quicker delivery of studies on current crisis events. Although EU funding, more than many other sources, avoids approaches confined to single case studies, researchers often opt for such an approach.
While case studies have value, we recommend meta-analyses of studies to allow generalization beyond a particular case. Furthermore, a broader view on crises is called for, instead of exclusively investigating one (type of) crisis event. Such research efforts could also provide a basis for the all-hazard approach that has been recommended for crisis preparedness in practice-related guidelines.
Similarly, more attention could be given to how the different media are connected and reinforce each other. For example, tweets often link to crisis management websites, news media and other internet sources. This may clarify changes in the roles of the various media over time. A focus on a single social medium (e.g. Facebook or Twitter), often seen in studies, brings partial insights but does not provide a comprehensive view on citizens’ perspectives of crisis events. An integral approach may show how citizens use multiple media and how this affects resilience.
In EU-funded research, multidisciplinary efforts are emphasised. However, research consortia may be more or less adept at delivering a mature balance. Often, the development of the content and research on multiple user perspectives receive little attention and quick assumptions in these areas are made, whereas most of the time and budget is invested in the development of technologies. Consequently, there is little attention for inclusiveness and different ways to relate to diverse publics. Assessment of project proposals should not just take into account if there is any attention for users, but also to what extent a mature balance is visible in the budget.
In multi-disciplinary research the role of the social scientist is often one of counteracting myths about human behaviour such as the myth of the panicking crowd that continues to be misused as an excuse not to involve citizens in crisis management and as an excuse not to furnish citizens with information. Therefore, scrutinising such myths will continue to need attention.
-Motivation, main aim, strategy and proposed directions-
The motivation to call for research with a bottom-up perspective on crisis management is that community approaches and citizen perspectives have, so far, received little attention in security research. The main aim in recommending such research is to clarify self-organisation by citizens and reveal barriers to the cooperation of citizens and authorities.
We recommend a focus on the interaction of the various actors involved in analysing real-life cases. Different collaborative approaches need to be looked at in detail, while meta-studies can provide a broader overview of insights gained. It remains necessary to counteract myths that hinder collaboration.
This leads to the following directions for future research. We propose more attention be paid to empirical research on collaboration with citizens in allocating research budgets. Collaboration competence needs to be further examined from a communication point of view. Moreover, an integral approach beyond technical means is needed in security research.
CONCLUSIONS
A robust approach is needed in public empowerment policies for crisis management. All three areas of practice, policymaking and research have an important role in bolstering community resilience and public response. How can these areas contribute?
The societal climate forms the basis for the empowerment of publics. If previous experience of crises exists in a certain region, this facilitates risk awareness, but it also depends on the culture whether this leads to a passive acceptance of the risk or the feeling by people that they can do something about it. The collective memory may also provide directions for preparedness, and hence storytelling may be one communication strategy that can help reinforce a tendency to act to enhance preparedness. Well connected societies have created bonds that may be helpful in responding to crises, and in an inclusive society more groups will be included in the process.
Community resilience initiatives may seek to strengthen such ties and so increase risk knowledge and skills. Empowerment can be part of the fabric of a society, where people are invited to develop themselves, and the way in which the government is working can also in part be directed to such goals, for example by facilitating participative policymaking on risk prioritization and recovery. Where such an approach is common in various policy areas, it is also more likely to be chosen in the field of risk and crisis management.
In the network of multiple response organisations and other actors involved, a co-production attitude can prevail to a greater or lesser extent. If collaboration with publics is part of the mindset, this is an important building block for resilience. Such collaboration also needs flexibility, a willingness to look at possible changes in the divisions of tasks and patterns of collaboration in emerging situations. Co-production with different publics is particularly needed in a major crisis.
In the case of high probability crises, intensive collaboration is more feasible. Preparation of publics makes more sense when the emphasis is on re-occurring crises, while delegation to authorities and inter-authority cooperation is called for in the case of lower probability crises. In an all-hazard approach to preparedness, all kinds of crises can be included, with the emphasis on high probability risks.
The extent to which resources are available makes a difference, but this is a matter of prioritisation. Community resilience-enhancing activities need the involvement of many policy levels, organisations and groups. It will not necessarily follow naturally from just one organisation’s interaction with publics, as the way in which resources are allocated may hinder what could be more beneficial at an aggregate level. Such involvement needs broader scope. To enable crisis management to function as a co-production of various professional and volunteer actors, various competences are required, including communication capabilities. Cross-border exchange of practices can facilitate finding suitable ways to integrate this approach into the (inter)national and local ways of working. Good practices can inspire others, while pitfalls should also be addressed in this learning process.
In this roadmap, we recommended directions for public empowerment policies for crisis management. The focus was on three areas, practice, policymaking and research, was along with cogent reasons for the need of public empowerment policies, and how we envisage their main aim and the components of such a strategy. All three areas are of importance and the areas strengthen each other.
For the practice area, we stress that public empowerment can be enhanced by exchange of best practices, that preparedness activities need to be re-invented in new ways to sustain an adequate level of attention to related issues and maintain resilience, and that technology needs to be used in a goal-oriented way to support community resilience.
Some challenges experienced in practice can only be overcome by making progress in the policymaking area. Here, public empowerment needs attention and at various levels. It should be clear how the national level contributes to the local and how diversity in the population is taken into account.
Issues experienced in the practice and policymaking area call for research efforts. These should to a greater extent be geared towards bottom-up approaches involving citizens that clarify how safety is co-created in multi-actor activities and identify barriers to collaboration processes. Co-production competence needs to be further explained, and the importance of an integral approach to research is stressed.
Together, the three areas of public empowerment policies and their proposed directions provide a solid basis for developing community resilience and citizen response. A comprehensive approach is needed because the current approaches are fragmented and public empowerment initiatives are currently at very different levels in the EU member states.
Potential Impact:
The project PEP addresses future directions for research and implementation, to enhance public resilience and bring a European ‘enabled public’ closer. The project delivered a broad overview of best practices for improving the crisis response abilities of the public, clarifying concrete measures that can be taken by authorities and other response organisations in the European Union member states and associate states. It also showed how a community approach can be effective in strengthening abilities and social structures for resilience. Furthermore, the project clarifies how and what technologies may strongly contribute to sharing of information and educative communication enhancing public resilience. This knowledge is provided to users in the form of online guidelines, reports, and a user-friendly ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’. A marketing campaign using social media was implemented to strengthen the impact of the WIKI.
Promising areas for further development were discussed to reveal directions for future research and implementation. For this purpose a roadmap was constructed and discussed online as well as during the International Disaster and Risk Conferences 2012 and 2014 in Davos. This well-known conference was chosen to add impact. In this way expertise will be brought together and knowledge exchanged.
The WIKI for professionals together with the ‘Roadmap public empowerment policies for crisis management’ provide new inspiring directions for future research as well as opportunities for response organisations to implement part of the content of the advice guides immediately.
The project is not research driven but seeks through its studies and dissemination of results to make important contributions to future directions of research and implementation in Europe contributing to public resilience. PEP adds to insights in crisis management and technical knowledge, by developing strong policies to empower publics from the novel perspective of co-producing with citizens and communities. Furthermore, through the roadmap the project produced innovative but above all effective ways to increase cooperation with and by citizens.
The outcomes form a strong package improving crisis preparedness from a citizen perspective throughout Europe.
The direct socio-economic impact is moderate as this includes personnel and development of potential through the teams involved, whereas the indirect socio-economic impact of the project is big as the knowledge created and the policies proposed enable authorities to increase social capital in disaster prevention and mitigation.
The project clarifies best practices and shows guidelines in the form of an accessible tool, the ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’. It also shows that current empowerment practices in the EU member states are fragmented and unstructured. Therefore, it advocates clear directions for further action of public empowerment policies for crisis management in the areas of practice, policymaking and research.
Without structural inclusion of the public in resilience enhancing activities, the increased expectations of citizens of two-way communication will not be met. Public empowerment and collaboration of authorities with publics in the security area contribute to relationships of trust, however they are also a ‘sine qua non’, an essential condition the member states can’t do without.
Based on the knowledge gathered, the web platform www.projectPEP.eu offers, next to reports, background about the project and links to publication, Guidelines on enhancing public empowerment, and a user-oriented ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’ to assist response organisations in identifying successful practices, community approaches and technology supporting public empowerment policies for crisis management. The report ‘Roadmap public empowerment policies for crisis management’ is constructed to provide directions for future research and implementation in this area.
List of Websites:
www.projectPEP.eu
The project Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management (PEP) is a cooperation of research teams from:
• The University of Jyväskylä, Finland (consortium coordinator)
(contact: prof. Marita Vos, marita.vos@jyu.fi)
• The Mid Sweden University, Sweden
(contact: prof. Anna Olofsson, anna.olofsson@miun.se)
• Global Risk Forum, Switzerland
(contact: Marc Stal, marc.stal@grforum.org)
• Inconnect, the Netherlands
(contact: Frank Vergeer, vergeer@inconnect.nl)
• The Emergency Services College, Finland
(contact: Laura Hokkanen, laura.hokkanen@pelastusopisto.fi).
The project Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management (PEP) was active from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2014. The project addressed future directions for research to enhance public resilience to bring a European ‘enabled public’ closer. Previously, there has been over-much focus on the activities of response organisations and not enough on the perspective of citizens, individuals, groups and communities. To be more effective, crisis management should be seen as coproduced with citizens, applying public empowerment policies which also utilise human technology.
The aim of the PEP project was to investigate how the crisis response abilities of the public can be enhanced and to clarify what public empowerment policies and research priorities can further community resilience. By investigating best practices in educating citizens and working with communities, taking their point of view into account, the project identified key enablers for public empowerment. In addition, the project clarified how authorities can successfully involve social groups and communities in crisis preparedness and response. Promising developments in the use of social media and mobile services were described including a human technology approach, taking preferences and public acceptance into account.
The status of empowerment initiatives and the challenges involved in cooperation between response organisations and citizens were investigated in various desk studies, an online international expert-questionnaire, interviews with local authorities and citizen groups, and focus group interviews with citizens. The results indicate that although the value of a community approach is seen by the experts, the picture of the actual implementation of a community approach in crisis management is very diverse and in need of further encouragement. Preparedness campaigns that are initiated as top-down activities are not effective. Instead, best practices connect with citizen initiatives. Moreover, on the local level, inclusion of local initiatives is seldom structured.
The project clarifies best practices and shows guidelines in the form of an accessible tool, the ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’. Dialogue about the research results was initiated via the International Disaster and Risk Conferences in Davos. An open call of the refereed journal Human Technology led to the publication of a Special Issue on ‘Community resilience in crises: Technology and social media enablers’.
The project PEP also focused on policy recommendations. The report ‘Roadmap public empowerment policies for crisis management’ advocates clear directions for further action of public empowerment policies for crisis management in the areas of practice, policymaking and research.
Without structural inclusion of the public in resilience enhancing activities, the increased expectations of citizens of two-way communication will not be met. Public empowerment and collaboration of authorities with publics in the security area contribute to relationships of trust, however they are also a ‘sine qua non’, an essential condition the member states can’t do without.
The website www.projectPEP.eu offers the ‘Crisis communication WIKI for Professionals’, research outcomes and the ‘Roadmap public empowerment policies for crisis management’.
Project Context and Objectives:
PEP is a support project that outlines directions for further research and implementation in Europe enhancing the crisis response abilities of the public. It provides recommendations based on a dialogue with crisis management experts and researchers.
Empowering the public to be better prepared for crises seems a logical way to strengthen crisis management, although in the past resources have been focused mainly on the activities of response organisations. Nowadays research shows and authorities have realized that the problems created by crises cannot be solved by response organisations alone, and that the behaviour of citizens can contribute to, or otherwise influence, crisis prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. Informed and well prepared citizens know how to react and respond to crisis and are able to support neighbours or responders, thereby helping to reduce primary and subsequent harm and damage. In this way, the project addresses important societal needs and challenges.
Some authorities may refrain from including citizens on the assumption that citizens are likely to panic in crisis situations. Research, however, has shown that this is usually not true and that, in fact, most lives are saved by the actions of ordinary citizens. As well-intended actions may also put volunteers in danger, this calls for protecting them through preparedness education. This leads to the obvious conclusion that complex evolving crises can only be solved through collaboration.
A general goal of crisis management is prevention and reduction of harm or damage. This is supported by the communication goals set for citizens: empowerment to act, social understanding of risks and increased cooperation. The role of communities in crisis response needs to be further strengthened, with the help of human technology supporting preparedness, and the issuing of instructions and sharing of information in crisis situations.
The cooperation of citizens is needed at all phases of crisis management. For example, not all people impacted by a crisis can be reached immediately by responders, so that the behaviour of ‘ordinary citizens’ is crucial at that stage, becoming civilian first responders; equipping citizens with appropriate skills and tools will do much to enhance their abilities in this role. Thus, the role of communities in crisis response can be enhanced, while technology can facilitate sharing of information.
Crisis management is challenging and response efforts can only be successful with civilian cooperation. Cooperation needs communication, and with that we do not only mean technical devices and means as in ‘communications’, but foremost communication as in dialogue, building relations with stakeholder groups through interaction. Communication policies should be developed that lead to public empowerment and a culture of preparedness. Moreover, ‘enablers’ of human resilience are not devices as such, but rather communication policies that also include human technology, with long term effects in building trust and self-efficacy among the public. By appropriate communication policies the cooperation of response organisations with the public and the crisis response abilities of the public can be enhanced. This calls for a multidisciplinary approach that has at its core expertise from communication science combined with expertise from information technology, and from the social and behavioural sciences.
Dissemination in this project includes raising awareness of key enablers to enhance the crisis response abilities of the public, not only among various organisations, including authorities, but also by bringing experts together to react to outcomes of the studies and help identify promising areas for further research and implementation. To facilitate this, a web platform was implemented and an international symposium connected to a well-known bi-yearly conference organised.
The consortium consisted of two university teams including communication science, technology and social sciences, and three end user organisations (one research consultancy, one SME consultancy and a public body) with extensive experience in the field and a good network with the relevant stakeholders and response organisations.
The goal of this project is to develop knowledge about key enablers for public empowerment which will help authorities improve crisis resilience, and to show promising areas for further research supporting human resilience.
To meet this overall goal the project has three objectives:
1. To identify potential key enablers for public empowerment for crisis management,
by various studies:
A) providing a broad overview of best practices in how authorities currently enhance human resilience, what strategies and tools are used to enhance individual, family and community crisis response, and insight in how much attention is given to public empowerment policies;
B) clarifying in depth how community approaches, involving local social groups in crisis preparedness and response, are used, including experiences and success factors e.g. how to connect with community needs;
C) assessing how and what technologies can enhance human resilience in crisis situations taking perceptions and social acceptance of the technologies and services into account.
2. To construct a roadmap charting promising areas for future research and development, and implementation supporting human resilience, by bringing together current expertise and research activities showing gaps and recommended directions.
3. To ensure dissemination of the project results in order to raise awareness of the importance of public resilience, and how this can be achieved, among relevant stakeholders.
The concept underlying this project ‘Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management’ links the above objectives together. The first three objectives are needed to create a basis for the roadmap and the online materials for dissemination of the project results.
To gain a better understanding of the status of empowerment initiatives and identify chances and challenges various research methods were used:
- a literature review on the role of communication in enhancing community resilience and citizen response,
- an online international expert-questionnaire,
- a desk study to find best practices of empowerment policies,
- a second literature review, followed by interviews, to better understand the cooperation between local authorities and citizen groups,
- a desk study addressing e.g. technology acceptance models,
- focus group interviews to clarify how citizens look for information in the case of a crisis and what this tells about the possible contributions technology could bring.
- analysis of the database of the International Disaster and Risk Conferences (IDRC) in Davos to identify trends in community resilience and how this is supported by technology.
The project clarified concrete measures that can be taken by authorities and other response organisations in the European Union member states and associate states. It delivered guidelines on how a community approach can be effective in strengthening abilities and social structures for resilience, and how technologies can strongly contribute to enhancing public resilience. Additionally, the project resulted in a roadmap that reports challenges that need additional policymaking in order to further community resilience.
Project Results:
Workpackage 1 concerned best practices. A literature study spanning 10 years of refereed articles revealed that community resilience and citizen response have gained interest, and that a resilient community is more and more seen as an important asset. This review of scientific literature focused on how communication contributes to community resilience and citizen response.
In addition, a desk study into best practices found in open and online sources was undertaken, resulting in an overview of inspiring projects to enhance public preparedness and response that was further analysed. The projects were described and ranked, to offer a ‘Catalogue of opportunities’ to inspire response organisations.
Furthermore, an expert-questionnaire on enablers for public empowerment had been conducted online. The results showed that the status of empowerment initiatives varied much in the European countries, and pointed out challenges experienced in practice.
Next, based on the report and the earlier outcomes, guidelines for enabling public empowerment were compiled.
Workpackage 2 investigated the community approach in crisis management. A preparatory desk study was undertaken that formed the basis for an interview study. The results were reported and turned into guidelines for improved cooperation of municipalities with local citizen groups.
Obstacles for collaboration on the local level between response organisations and citizen groups relate, on the one hand, to limited resources and unclear allocation of responsibilities for cooperation with diverse citizens groups. On the other hand, people prefer to participate in collective efforts through the groups and institutions in which they normally participate, rather than through forms of collaboration created specifically for crisis and disaster management.
Workpackage 3 focused on technology supporting public empowerment in crises. A desk study was delivered, including a discussion on acceptance models of technology. For this workpackage a section on social media was included in the questionnaire of work package 1, and the results were analysed and reported. Furthermore, focus group interviews were conducted to clarify what information people look for in crisis situations and how this is facilitated by technology. The final report of this workpackage also includes some additional desk and case studies. The conclusions were turned into guidelines for technology enhancing community resilience.
Citizens use multiple communication technologies and channels to acquire, receive and share information about crises and emergencies. The progress of events is often followed via the media, while confirmation is sought from various other sources. Authority sources are consulted less if expected not to be continuously updated, while especially information shared by close-ones would have high credibility.
Workpackage 4 concerned the process towards the roadmap and an international symposium in 2014. The activities began with a kick-off workshop during the International Disaster and Risk Conference (IDRC) 2012 in Davos. Expertise of other projects on related topics was mapped, and conclusions on research trends were reported. Based on expert-interviews the results of the previous three workpackages had been validated and the challenges experienced in practice were further discussed to identify policies needing attention to be able to further community resilience. This led to conclusions and recommended directions for practice, policymaking and future research that were presented in the IDRC Davos 2014 conference, and on an online discussion FORUM of the project. Finally the roadmap was compiled.
Workpackage 5 concerned dissemination and includes the web platform www.projectPEP.eu its marketing and other dissemination activities. The web platform includes the ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’, the guidelines on public empowerment for crisis management, the roadmap and other reports.
Workpackage 6 concerned project management including, among other things, project coordination and quality control, as well as arranging consortium meetings, teleconferences and review meetings.
Below we provide a short version of the roadmap, see www.projectPEP.eu for the full text.
ENHANCING PUBLIC EMPOWERMENT: DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICE, POLICYMAKING AND RESEACH
Nowadays crises are seen as long processes, rather than events focusing solely on warning and early response. Moreover, more actors are involved in co-creating resilience, and risk and crisis management call for attention on the local, national and international levels. An integrated approach is needed that engages all authorities, citizens and stakeholders involved. This underlines the importance of public empowerment policies.
In the below directions for practice, policymaking and research are discussed.
PRACTICE
In practice, empowerment strategies can be built on various elements that have been reported as effective in the literature and found in our empirical research. A robust approach is needed on many levels, as will be explained further in the following sections on cooperation with citizens, public preparedness and response, and technology enhancing citizen response.
-Cooperation with citizens-
After years of specialization, the quality of the rescue services in many European countries is very good and citizens rely on them. However, major crises call for a strong citizen response as well, and the administrative mindset does not yet seem to be ready for that. The scope and depth of collaboration with public groups differ greatly across authorities. Collaboration with well-known organisations of volunteers is already embedded, but many other citizen groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) exist that could increasingly be included in resilience efforts.
Local authorities in particular are expected to take more initiative in connecting with civil sector groups that can contribute to crisis response or preparedness, such as volunteers, who can be organized to a greater or lesser extent. In municipal crisis plans, traditional NGOs may be involved, such as volunteer fire brigades or the local Red Cross. However, a wider approach may be utilized to include available resources in various forms, including social capital.
Such resources can be identified and further developed in integrated intervention maps, following a whole community approach involving public organisations, citizen groups, NGOs and private companies in the area. A broad look at the available resources is recommended, especially in rural areas where, for example, farmers and local companies may be asked to help clear roads after storms or strengthen dams. Similarly, on a regional or national level public-private collaboration needs to be further developed, for example, in collaboration with vital infrastructure companies. This calls for joint mapping of resources before a crisis happens, and preparedness in how to reach contacts in crisis situations.
After consideration of how the results of mapping can be used in crisis management, the social capital identified may include the competences and communication connections of parties on the local, regional or national level. Local authorities can utilize their connectedness with health care and education where these may serve as bridges to the public. Doctors and schools, along with religious communities, have high trust relations with citizens that can facilitate preparedness of the latter. Regional and national authorities often have strong links with associations and special interest groups. The last-mentioned can help take the special needs of public groups into account, including, for example, pregnant women, the elderly, people with disabilities and minority groups.
Building societal resilience in an interactive and inclusive way involves more actors than the rescue services, which primarily supply specialised emergency capabilities. Although, among citizens, the trust basis of rescue services may be high, the collaborative work needs additional competences and the involvement of other administrative bodies. In a time of economic constraints, it is hard to prioritise budgets for empowerment-related tasks. However, insights into how collaboration can be strengthened have increased and there is a growing number of best practices that can inspire crisis management authorities.
-Public preparedness and response-
Public preparedness can be enhanced by preparedness education. Top-down campaigns are less effective than initiatives with citizen involvement. Citizens can be involved in crisis planning and exercises, and schools further included in preparedness activities. The communication policy should include multiple communication channels. During crises, monitoring of social media facilitates answering information needs and rumours, and follow-up, if the instructions provided have proven effective.
Current crises are often complex and can develop in unexpected ways. Therefore, preparedness is not helped so much by learning fixed responses for various detailed scenarios, but rather by enhancing understanding of risks and strengthening competences and skills that are helpful in a range of emerging crises. An all-hazard approach is recommended facilitating resilience to various hazards, and especially those that have a high likelihood in the region involved.
As a community approach goes beyond one-way communication, a broad strategy relates to working with intermediary groups and stakeholders, including interest or minority groups, NGOs and private companies, on the local, regional and national levels. In this way, safety is co-created in a broader network than the traditional response network. On the local level collaboration can begin by exchanging activities and insights by various groups to see what activities are already in train and clarify local risks, for example, by making local risk excursions.
Preparedness campaigns organised by authorities in a top-down approach without active public involvement are usually not effective. Authorities can better connect with ongoing citizen initiatives and create strong community involvement through public education campaigns. Moreover, public interest in preparedness information is often low, rising when a potential crisis unfolds. This leaves a limited timeframe for preparedness action. Other strategies for preparedness education are based on involvement of intermediaries, such as local health institutions and schools. Preparedness education should also be part of school curricula.
Recently, the use of social media in crisis communication has received much attention. However, it should also be noted that the role of the news media is strong in disasters and emergencies. News reports are followed more actively in times of crisis and a large proportion of retweets in fact concern news media messages. Furthermore, the importance of face-to-face meetings and direct contacts between authority representatives and citizens should be underlined.
Many people may not be aware of how important their knowledge and skills could be in coping with emergencies, as they tend to rely on being able to retrieve information on such occasions from sources such as internet websites or apps. However, in power outages, only preparedness helps. This makes it important to have dedicated preparedness websites that are easy to access for those moments when people, because of a crisis in another country or at an early stage of a crisis, are still able and also motivated to learn how they might be able to cope with an evolving crisis situation.
When assessing the results of crisis exercises, emphasis should be put on evaluating the collaboration with citizens. During crisis situations, it is important to involve those sources, people and organisations that are trusted by different groups in the population. To arrange and canalise public help, information and communication technologies (ICT) may be used, for example, as a tool for the recruitment, development and maintenance of the voluntary public.
-Technology enhancing citizen response-
Technology creates opportunities for citizens to communicate with authorities and vice versa, as it can facilitate fast exchange of information in crisis situations. In the future, open and closed crisis mapping systems will co-exist. In open systems, filtering is needed for quality control, while privacy protection and misuse of systems must be taken into account. Crisis management apps should be integrated into citizens’ daily life, but should not increase feelings of insecurity.
The levels of supporting technology of authorities in different countries are diverse, and in many cases the new technologies are still used for one-way sending of messages. Information relayed by citizens can be seen merely as an add-on to already well-developed internal authority crisis-mapping systems, but also as an opportunity to co-create a fuller picture of the situation in a system that is also open to citizens. In the future, diverse closed and open crisis mapping systems will probably co-exist. Open systems, for example those that show citizen messages on a map, need filtering for privacy protection and prevention of misuse. Naturally, citizens will expect a follow-up on the messages they post.
Current attempts in developing social media platforms for crisis mitigation are fragmented and strategies are needed on how these social media platforms can foster public engagement in all the phases of a crisis. Crowd mapping can provide live information maps that show citizens safe places. Crisis mapping in open systems is also being developed to include high numbers of smaller urban incidents. However, this could increase feelings of insecurity as it confronts people with many, often irrelevant, notifications. Instead, apps for localized warnings and integration of crisis-related messages in wider apps, such as weather apps and road planners, should be considered. As new technology is developed rapidly, authorities need to focus on its functionality.
All interactive use of technology requires preparations before a crisis situation occurs, as citizens need to become acquainted with the tools and, for example, take out subscriptions for apps and become a follower in Twitter or friend in Facebook. It also requires cooperation, for example, asking citizens and organisations to use the same hashtag when tweeting information about a particular crisis. Initiatives for sharing information during crises are increasingly being taken by groups of trained digital volunteers.
To promote interactive use of online platforms for collaboration between authorities and citizens, it is important to understand that communication via social media and mobile services is initiated by response organisations and citizens for different purposes. For cooperation to be successful, a win-win situation should be created, where the motivations of publics and authorities converge or both gain benefits from the functionalities of the platform. For example, response organisations may aim to educate, give instructions or ask citizens for assistance, while citizens may want to know what’s happening, report to others on what is happening in their own vicinity or exchange emotions. The development of interactive technology for public empowerment requires an integral approach, entailing understanding of why and how different users may want to employ it, and making the solution accessible and inclusive, and possibly part of the user’s everyday life.
The continuous evolution of technology will bring new opportunities as well as challenges in the field of crisis management and communication. As consumer electronics become more and more ubiquitous, the possibility exists that the gap between the technologies available to the public and the capabilities and resources of the authorities to exploit the latest means will widen. Next, we present some issues that are likely to characterize the field over the next few years.
The younger generations, who are more information technology literate, may take over related responsibilities within authorities as well as citizen groups. This could help promote shared understanding of technological solutions and awareness of how empowerment can be integrated into the development processes.
The mobile phone has transformed into an immediate smart interface with local or remote data and information. Intelligent sensors are increasingly being embedded into these devices, enabling an increase in citizens' participatory sensing. This means that in the years to come any (urban) environment will be monitored by thousands of smart devices also during crisis situations. How this massive information load can be rapidly collected, analysed and presented to decision makers will become an important issue.
In social media, a trend towards more security and privacy concerning ways of working among the general public can already be observed, e.g. people moving from Twitter to various closed applications such as WhatsApp, an instant messaging tool. If the public continue to use more closed and more diverse forms of group communications, this will have the effect of scattering the information available and make it harder for authorities to access citizen information during a crisis situation.
Another cause of global concern entails issues of cyber-security that may hinder the development of communication between public and private actors. In developing preparedness for possible cyber emergencies, the empowerment of the public is important. If and when the overall communication infrastructure is compromised, there still remain the innovative solutions of citizens' groups, which should be strengthened by supporting empowerment.
-Motivation, main aim, strategy and proposed directions-
The motivation to create public empowerment policies in the area of practice is based on the fact that the level of development of initiatives for community resilience and citizen response is very diverse across the EU and in many places low. The main aim for doing this is to include the thus far under-used resources of civil society groups and private organisations that may enable coping with crises.
In light both of the diverse levels already achieved and the interest observed among authorities in further developing this work in practice, we propose a strategy for facilitating the exchange of best practices that includes citizens in preparedness and response. This should help to counter misperceptions such as the panic myth and clarify how cooperation processes can be arranged.
In addition, we propose the following future directions for the area of practice. When stimulating public empowerment activities, one should ensure that activities on one government level accord with those on another level and that they do not contradict each other. As explained before, it is important to connect with local or other citizen initiatives, and to have an inclusive multi-stakeholder approach.
POLICYMAKING
As resilience to crises is crucial in today’s society, the level of involvement of public groups needs to increase fast. However, there are several problems to overcome, for which attention in practice is not enough and that need policymaking to create more impact.
- Attention to public preparedness and resilience-
The status of public empowerment initiatives in crisis management is very diverse across Europe. Public preparedness has received insufficient attention in many places, although good practices also exist that build on local citizen initiatives and, for example, link with the UNISDR campaign ‘Making cities resilient’.
In addition, to include resilience from a public empowerment perspective, a sector-wise approach can be undertaken, for example, in the health sector, on various policy levels. Different government sectors can look into the consequences for their ways of working of adopting an empowerment approach in collaborating with citizens and engaging with other stakeholders to increase societal resilience. This may also lead to training and education materials for specific sectors. In the different sectors stakeholders can be stimulated to contribute to preparedness by financial and other incentives.
Civil participation needs to be ensured in all phases of a crisis. Concerning the implementation of preparedness activities and of response activities, a good start has been made in various places. But it also needs to be ensured that civil society actors and citizen groups are included in decision making on the prioritization of the risks to be prepared for, and reconstruction activities in the aftermath of a crisis, e.g. by participative decision making.
-Community resilience at various policy levels-
Next to attention to the individual level of preparedness, collaboration with civil society actors and community groups needs to be strengthened. A sustainable, approach systematically acknowledges social networks and social fabrics. Civil society actors should also be included in the policymaking for societal resilience, for example, in disaster risk reduction (DRR) protocols.
It is often unclear where on the different government levels responsibilities for public empowerment lie and how the national level supports the local. The concern here is how the local, region and national authority levels contribute to societal resilience. Defining roles and responsibilities on these levels needs to be emphasised, similarly in the collaboration with citizen groups.
It is clear that the leadership of local authorities is needed to increase community resilience and public response. However, inclusive approaches are not only expected on the local or municipality level. For example, on the national level collaboration with civil society groups and associations can be initiated so that the needs of special groups are taken into account, for example, ensuring accessibility norms for security applications. On the (inter)national level norms for the use of crowdsourcing could also receive attention, for example, ownership of data gathered (rescue services or software companies involved), and codes of conduct.
The EU knowledge centre on humanitarian aid could host a catalogue of free solutions and best practice materials that enable community resilience and citizen response. This would also make related free services developed by EU projects easier to find (for example, the PEP ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’).
Currently, expectations on the role of the municipalities are high, which relates to more policy themes than security. For municipalities their links with the local health and education institutes offer chances, but there are also challenges in developing resilience. One of the major challenges for collaboration between municipalities and NGOs is the lack of common meeting platforms and, in consequence, low degrees of interaction between voluntary groups and municipal representatives.
An additional challenge facing future collaborative efforts is the fact that at present most of the collaboration between the voluntary public and municipal representatives takes place between traditional organizations. Policies are needed to create common platforms, e.g. through joint exercises with established NGOs and new network-like forms of organizations supported by ICT.
At the municipal level, inclusion of NGOs now often depends on personal contacts, and hence policies are needed to ensure their continuation and make such initiatives not coincidental but structural. It should be clear in what way enhancing resilience, taking the role of social networks and social fabrics into account, is seen primarily as a task of rescue services, the broader municipality and/or others.
Members of NGOs may be willing to take responsibility for handling specific tasks, but the challenge is how to satisfy the needs of the municipal representatives and at the same time address the diverse interests and ambitions of the NGOs. New possibilities are being created to reach out to, and gather, people as well as disseminate information, not only by authorities, but also by NGOs and individuals themselves. Also, local NGOs may not have the resources to build and use digital tools. Municipalities need to develop policies on how to use digital media, both to communicate with NGOs and the general public, and in other areas of crisis management, e.g. education and training.
One of the challenges experienced at the local level is related to the transfer of contacts and knowledge between people and generations. Traditional NGOs are often dependent on older age groups, while young people and minority groups are often underrepresented. An inclusive policy is needed to ensure that younger generations, as well as a diverse public, are engaged in different volunteer activities to ensure long term engagement and knowledge transfer, e.g. by engaging people from various age groups and with different skills and experiences. Differences in the resources and habits of citizens in a diverse society characterized by multi-ethnicity, social and educational gaps and ability to use new communication technology must be considered by municipalities.
Yet another challenge is posed by new forms of voluntary commitment, such as loosely connected networks of individual non-organized volunteers and the structural difficulties these bring in their train. This includes insurance and financial compensation during voluntary commitment, as well as how to secure the competence and skills of the volunteers, and how to recruit volunteers. Therefore, policies are needed that solve such needs, and especially the need for insurance.
-Diversity and policy making-
Diversity in the population calls for a differentiated approach in implementing cooperation with citizens. Collaboration may focus on different matters, and different communication means and approaches may be utilized that take risk perceptions and, for example, trust in authorities into account. Although cultural aspects and differences call for specific approaches, ways can be found to make efficient use of expertise gained in different countries. In particular, regions with a similar risk profile could exchange experiences and deploy similar ways of engaging citizens in crisis preparedness.
Local and cultural aspects, social economic conditions and traditions shape the impact of disasters. Risk perceptions, disaster experience and trust in authorities can be very different among different population groups, and risks are not equally divided over public groups. Attention also needs to be paid to inclusive approaches in cross-border crisis management, and when assistance is offered across borders it should connect with what local communities need and, to be an ethical response, take diversity into account. Similarly, media use habits, trust in media and being acquainted with various technologies differ.
Although diversity clearly needs to be taken into account, this does not mean that sharing experiences or utilizing approaches used elsewhere is impossible. Some regions may have more in common with others abroad than with neighbouring regions in the same country. In particular, exchange of policies can be useful among regions with a similar risk profile. These regions could consider utilizing similar ways of engaging citizens in crisis preparedness, for example cities near a river vulnerable to flooding, mountain regions with similar erosion risks, or industrial areas with intensive farming and animal-disease or chemical risks. This includes how citizens can be asked to participate in gathering data on interactive platforms, and in re-construction of the area after a crisis situation has occurred.
-Motivation, main aim, strategy and proposed directions-
The motivation for directing attention to this topic in the policymaking area is that a community approach to crisis management is, thus far, only visible in a fragmented and not structured way. It often depends on single individuals whether such an approach has been taken up or not. Therefore, the main aim is to strongly stimulate the attention of policymakers and remove the barriers for bottom-up collaboration in crises.
Components of the recommended strategy include strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction initiatives by a clear emphasis on community resilience, involving various sectors in a human-centred approach, in a way that is sensitive to cultural-specific requirements and diversity in society.
The proposed directions for policymaking concern the following. Continued attention to community approaches in risk and crisis management can be provided in multiple ways, also including public-private collaboration and implementation of community principles in various sectors. The contribution and inter-relatedness of the different governmental levels involved, need to be clear. Cross-border exchange of insights adds value among regions with similar risk profiles, such as mountain regions with erosion problems, densely populated city areas and riverbanks prone to flooding.
RESEARCH
The research needs mentioned in this section relate to knowledge gaps found in the literature and challenges experienced in practice or policymaking that call for research.
-A focus on resilience and citizen perspective-
There is a need for studies focusing on community resilience and citizen response. The main interest of earlier studies in the security field has been, for example, in response organizations’ strategies and tactics, rather than in the needs and actions of citizen groups in crisis situations. To enhance community resilience and citizen response, further research should be done to understand crises in greater depth from the viewpoint of citizen groups and clarify the role of the latter in crisis response, for example by investigating modes of collaboration in detail and scrutinizing barriers to collaboration that have occurred in recent crises.
Previous security projects have primarily related to citizens by addressing one-way information, for example contributing to improved warnings, or communication among response organisations, while improving crisis communication in two-way interaction with the public, with the aim of enhancing community resilience, has received attention in just a few projects, and thus remains in need of further research efforts.
Crisis communication is often viewed from the perspective of authorities, rather than citizens. Similarly, papers linking crisis communication and social media have rarely focussed on how individuals deal with crises in social media contexts. Future research should clarify the self-organization activities and capabilities of citizens, so that response organizations can better connect with this. In addition, barriers to collaboration can be further clarified.
In practice, older ways of segmenting target groups by demographic characteristics have been left behind and replaced by an approach focusing on “rings” of involved people. In a crisis situation, those directly affected were considered part of the inner ring, while other rings consisted of those who were indirectly involved, for example through mass media. Now that social media contacts facilitate fast communication from those directly involved to others, the segmentation of target groups seems to have become more difficult. This indicates a need for further research.
Similarly, it has been shown that top-down campaigns are less effective than activities that originate from a bottom-up approach. However, it remains unclear what aspects of inclusion of citizen initiatives explain this difference, and how elements of both approaches can be combined.
Many publications refer to the need for bilateral collaboration between authority organisations and citizen groups, while failing to build a more complete picture of the interplay in a multi-actor network of governmental, non-governmental and private organisations, with various more or less loosely connected individuals.
Furthermore, there is a need for empirical data on the use of social media tools for collaborative data gathering. This can obviously include quantitative approaches, but qualitative approaches from the perspective of multiple users with different objectives for their participation are also needed.
-Coproduction competence-
The crisis communication competence of both experts and citizens needs to be further studied. Coproducing safety necessitates the spanning of boundaries. This requires competence in interpersonal communication and social interaction from the experts working in response organizations. Also, the citizens involved in crises need multifaceted crisis communication competence. There is a need to better understand what kind of crisis communication competence is required from experts and citizens alike, and how this can be developed, including through informal learning. In addition, cultural differences in crisis communication competence and learning should more profoundly be taken into account.
In the community approach to crisis management, citizen groups are not seen merely as target groups, but instead as active co-actors in response to emergencies. The importance of collaboration between response organisations and citizens has been underlined, however only few studies have been done on the related competence needed in crisis management, in order to coordinate and facilitate cooperation between experts and citizens.
Similarly, research could further clarify the specific competence needed by citizens to enable them to mitigate crises together. Studying crisis communication competence would be helpful for community resilience in the future, especially if seen as networked competence rather than an individual characteristic.
-Integral approach to crisis communication-
Research on crisis communication in emergencies and disasters has focused excessively on case studies of specific crisis events. Similarly, the focus has often been on the use of a single social media application in a particular crisis. Consequently, there is a need for an integral approach. This also relates to research into the development of security-related tools for interaction with citizens, where the budget has primarily been focused on the production of the requisite tools, while content and multiple users with different motives have been under-investigated.
An integral approach is needed in research to acknowledge that crisis communication is co-created in a network comprising response organisations, other public and private organisations, citizen groups and individual citizens. The perspective of multi-actor networks adds value to the traditional focus on response organisations alone, or studying response organisations collaborating with citizens. It connects with the ‘whole community approach’ mentioned earlier and underlines the diversity of the groups and individuals involved.
A literature search of refereed articles showed a trend towards focusing on particular crisis events. One reason for this may be support from research funding sources inviting research after an event, such as the September 11 attacks, or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This is visible as a peak in related studies some years after a crisis event, as call and review procedures take time. Leaving the case situation to be investigated more open in the call stage could result in quicker delivery of studies on current crisis events. Although EU funding, more than many other sources, avoids approaches confined to single case studies, researchers often opt for such an approach.
While case studies have value, we recommend meta-analyses of studies to allow generalization beyond a particular case. Furthermore, a broader view on crises is called for, instead of exclusively investigating one (type of) crisis event. Such research efforts could also provide a basis for the all-hazard approach that has been recommended for crisis preparedness in practice-related guidelines.
Similarly, more attention could be given to how the different media are connected and reinforce each other. For example, tweets often link to crisis management websites, news media and other internet sources. This may clarify changes in the roles of the various media over time. A focus on a single social medium (e.g. Facebook or Twitter), often seen in studies, brings partial insights but does not provide a comprehensive view on citizens’ perspectives of crisis events. An integral approach may show how citizens use multiple media and how this affects resilience.
In EU-funded research, multidisciplinary efforts are emphasised. However, research consortia may be more or less adept at delivering a mature balance. Often, the development of the content and research on multiple user perspectives receive little attention and quick assumptions in these areas are made, whereas most of the time and budget is invested in the development of technologies. Consequently, there is little attention for inclusiveness and different ways to relate to diverse publics. Assessment of project proposals should not just take into account if there is any attention for users, but also to what extent a mature balance is visible in the budget.
In multi-disciplinary research the role of the social scientist is often one of counteracting myths about human behaviour such as the myth of the panicking crowd that continues to be misused as an excuse not to involve citizens in crisis management and as an excuse not to furnish citizens with information. Therefore, scrutinising such myths will continue to need attention.
-Motivation, main aim, strategy and proposed directions-
The motivation to call for research with a bottom-up perspective on crisis management is that community approaches and citizen perspectives have, so far, received little attention in security research. The main aim in recommending such research is to clarify self-organisation by citizens and reveal barriers to the cooperation of citizens and authorities.
We recommend a focus on the interaction of the various actors involved in analysing real-life cases. Different collaborative approaches need to be looked at in detail, while meta-studies can provide a broader overview of insights gained. It remains necessary to counteract myths that hinder collaboration.
This leads to the following directions for future research. We propose more attention be paid to empirical research on collaboration with citizens in allocating research budgets. Collaboration competence needs to be further examined from a communication point of view. Moreover, an integral approach beyond technical means is needed in security research.
CONCLUSIONS
A robust approach is needed in public empowerment policies for crisis management. All three areas of practice, policymaking and research have an important role in bolstering community resilience and public response. How can these areas contribute?
The societal climate forms the basis for the empowerment of publics. If previous experience of crises exists in a certain region, this facilitates risk awareness, but it also depends on the culture whether this leads to a passive acceptance of the risk or the feeling by people that they can do something about it. The collective memory may also provide directions for preparedness, and hence storytelling may be one communication strategy that can help reinforce a tendency to act to enhance preparedness. Well connected societies have created bonds that may be helpful in responding to crises, and in an inclusive society more groups will be included in the process.
Community resilience initiatives may seek to strengthen such ties and so increase risk knowledge and skills. Empowerment can be part of the fabric of a society, where people are invited to develop themselves, and the way in which the government is working can also in part be directed to such goals, for example by facilitating participative policymaking on risk prioritization and recovery. Where such an approach is common in various policy areas, it is also more likely to be chosen in the field of risk and crisis management.
In the network of multiple response organisations and other actors involved, a co-production attitude can prevail to a greater or lesser extent. If collaboration with publics is part of the mindset, this is an important building block for resilience. Such collaboration also needs flexibility, a willingness to look at possible changes in the divisions of tasks and patterns of collaboration in emerging situations. Co-production with different publics is particularly needed in a major crisis.
In the case of high probability crises, intensive collaboration is more feasible. Preparation of publics makes more sense when the emphasis is on re-occurring crises, while delegation to authorities and inter-authority cooperation is called for in the case of lower probability crises. In an all-hazard approach to preparedness, all kinds of crises can be included, with the emphasis on high probability risks.
The extent to which resources are available makes a difference, but this is a matter of prioritisation. Community resilience-enhancing activities need the involvement of many policy levels, organisations and groups. It will not necessarily follow naturally from just one organisation’s interaction with publics, as the way in which resources are allocated may hinder what could be more beneficial at an aggregate level. Such involvement needs broader scope. To enable crisis management to function as a co-production of various professional and volunteer actors, various competences are required, including communication capabilities. Cross-border exchange of practices can facilitate finding suitable ways to integrate this approach into the (inter)national and local ways of working. Good practices can inspire others, while pitfalls should also be addressed in this learning process.
In this roadmap, we recommended directions for public empowerment policies for crisis management. The focus was on three areas, practice, policymaking and research, was along with cogent reasons for the need of public empowerment policies, and how we envisage their main aim and the components of such a strategy. All three areas are of importance and the areas strengthen each other.
For the practice area, we stress that public empowerment can be enhanced by exchange of best practices, that preparedness activities need to be re-invented in new ways to sustain an adequate level of attention to related issues and maintain resilience, and that technology needs to be used in a goal-oriented way to support community resilience.
Some challenges experienced in practice can only be overcome by making progress in the policymaking area. Here, public empowerment needs attention and at various levels. It should be clear how the national level contributes to the local and how diversity in the population is taken into account.
Issues experienced in the practice and policymaking area call for research efforts. These should to a greater extent be geared towards bottom-up approaches involving citizens that clarify how safety is co-created in multi-actor activities and identify barriers to collaboration processes. Co-production competence needs to be further explained, and the importance of an integral approach to research is stressed.
Together, the three areas of public empowerment policies and their proposed directions provide a solid basis for developing community resilience and citizen response. A comprehensive approach is needed because the current approaches are fragmented and public empowerment initiatives are currently at very different levels in the EU member states.
Potential Impact:
The project PEP addresses future directions for research and implementation, to enhance public resilience and bring a European ‘enabled public’ closer. The project delivered a broad overview of best practices for improving the crisis response abilities of the public, clarifying concrete measures that can be taken by authorities and other response organisations in the European Union member states and associate states. It also showed how a community approach can be effective in strengthening abilities and social structures for resilience. Furthermore, the project clarifies how and what technologies may strongly contribute to sharing of information and educative communication enhancing public resilience. This knowledge is provided to users in the form of online guidelines, reports, and a user-friendly ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’. A marketing campaign using social media was implemented to strengthen the impact of the WIKI.
Promising areas for further development were discussed to reveal directions for future research and implementation. For this purpose a roadmap was constructed and discussed online as well as during the International Disaster and Risk Conferences 2012 and 2014 in Davos. This well-known conference was chosen to add impact. In this way expertise will be brought together and knowledge exchanged.
The WIKI for professionals together with the ‘Roadmap public empowerment policies for crisis management’ provide new inspiring directions for future research as well as opportunities for response organisations to implement part of the content of the advice guides immediately.
The project is not research driven but seeks through its studies and dissemination of results to make important contributions to future directions of research and implementation in Europe contributing to public resilience. PEP adds to insights in crisis management and technical knowledge, by developing strong policies to empower publics from the novel perspective of co-producing with citizens and communities. Furthermore, through the roadmap the project produced innovative but above all effective ways to increase cooperation with and by citizens.
The outcomes form a strong package improving crisis preparedness from a citizen perspective throughout Europe.
The direct socio-economic impact is moderate as this includes personnel and development of potential through the teams involved, whereas the indirect socio-economic impact of the project is big as the knowledge created and the policies proposed enable authorities to increase social capital in disaster prevention and mitigation.
The project clarifies best practices and shows guidelines in the form of an accessible tool, the ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’. It also shows that current empowerment practices in the EU member states are fragmented and unstructured. Therefore, it advocates clear directions for further action of public empowerment policies for crisis management in the areas of practice, policymaking and research.
Without structural inclusion of the public in resilience enhancing activities, the increased expectations of citizens of two-way communication will not be met. Public empowerment and collaboration of authorities with publics in the security area contribute to relationships of trust, however they are also a ‘sine qua non’, an essential condition the member states can’t do without.
Based on the knowledge gathered, the web platform www.projectPEP.eu offers, next to reports, background about the project and links to publication, Guidelines on enhancing public empowerment, and a user-oriented ‘Crisis communication WIKI for professionals’ to assist response organisations in identifying successful practices, community approaches and technology supporting public empowerment policies for crisis management. The report ‘Roadmap public empowerment policies for crisis management’ is constructed to provide directions for future research and implementation in this area.
List of Websites:
www.projectPEP.eu
The project Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management (PEP) is a cooperation of research teams from:
• The University of Jyväskylä, Finland (consortium coordinator)
(contact: prof. Marita Vos, marita.vos@jyu.fi)
• The Mid Sweden University, Sweden
(contact: prof. Anna Olofsson, anna.olofsson@miun.se)
• Global Risk Forum, Switzerland
(contact: Marc Stal, marc.stal@grforum.org)
• Inconnect, the Netherlands
(contact: Frank Vergeer, vergeer@inconnect.nl)
• The Emergency Services College, Finland
(contact: Laura Hokkanen, laura.hokkanen@pelastusopisto.fi).
