Enhancing Synergies for disaster PRevention in the EurOpean Union

Project Information

ESPREssO

Grant agreement ID: 700342

DOI

10.3030/700342

Project closed

EC signature date 18 April 2016

Start date 1 May 2016

End date 31 October 2018

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 2 374 367,50

EU contribution

€ 2 068 021,25

Coordinated by

AMRA - ANALISI E MONITORAGGIO DEL RISCHIO AMBIENTALE SCARL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ESPREssO (Enhancing Synergies for disaster PRevention in the EurOpean Union)

Reporting period: 2017-11-01 to 2018-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The ESPREssO project (Enhancing Synergies for disaster PRevention in the EurOpean Union), a Coordination and Support Action funded by DG-RESEARCH under the H2020 Programme, have contributed to a new strategic vision on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) in Europe and to a future roadmap for research and innovation activities within the Horizon Europe Framework Programme.
To achieve this goal, the project has used three main broad challenges as a logic framework around which to build the recognition of relevant gaps and needs both in the scientific and governance domains:
• Integrating DRR and CCA, to propose ways to create more coherent national and European approaches and resilience strengthening;
• Integrating Science and legal/policy issues in DRR and CCA, to enhance risk management capabilities by bridging the gap within these domains at local and national levels;
• Improving national regulations to prepare for transboundary crises, to address the issue of efficient management of disasters induced by natural hazards (including cascading effects and NaTech) requiring a coordinated effort from two or more countries in the EU, and/or the support of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
Besides the expertise of the ESPREssO consortium, the success of the project resulted from an extensive contribution of stakeholders and key actors working in the fields of DRR and CCA. Stakeholder Forums (SFs), Think Tanks (TTs), serious gaming, online questionnaire surveys and the online repository developed in the Action Database were designed to facilitate effective mechanisms and interactions with the key players and structuring their feedback with respect to the expected outcomes of the projects.
The final outcomes and the considerable number of documents, deliverables and reports developed throughout the project, represent not merely the point of view of the consortium, rather the ESPREssO community at large. The final outcomes, the Vision Paper on future research strategies following the Sendai Framework and the Enhancing Risk Management Capabilities Guidelines, have taken advantage of an intense review activity carried out by the international experts of the ESPREssO Stakeholder group

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work carried out during the project can be as follow:
Stakeholders’ selection based on specific criteria mapped through for the Stakeholder database
Constant dialogue and joint activities with PLACARD and ERA4CS projects.
Collection of results from the Questionnaire survey to be included in the final outcomes of the project
Joint organization in developing ESPREssO Stakeholder Forums and Think Tanks, newsletter and other dissemination activities
ESPREssO challenge reports developed (extra-result) and discussed in a workshop with HUD and UCPH
HUD released D2.1 including the review at national (UK, IT, FR, CH, DK and DE drafted by country partners), EU and Global level, of legal policy and science approach to DRR and CCA
GFZ has developed in close collaboration with BRGM, ETHZ, DKKV and support from AMRA the RAMSETE I, II and III (Risk Assessment Model Simulation for Emergency Training Exercise tool) scenario training tool, including production of the required materials (table-board, cards, metric tokens, etc.), used during the three Think Tanks
BRGM has developed a multi-lingual Action Database (ADB) in order to formalize and analyse feedbacks from stakeholders and classify information using different criteria
The ADB content has been analyzed in detail to identify solutions to overcome the three ESPREssO challenges: 68 possible solutions and 30 good cases to illustrate the Challenges has been identified and have alimented the WP5 final documents
As part of the ESPREssO dissemination strategy Twitter, Facebook, YouTube account, as well as the ESPREssO web portal (http://www.espressoproject.eu/) have been active all along the project and even after its end initiated.
Videos, newsletters and dissemination materials have been produced and spread on social media channels
Scientific papers and/or posters at international various conferences on DRR and CCA have been presented and some others are in progress
Guidelines and Vision Paper (AMRA task leader) have been developed and first presented at the second Stakeholder Forum
All the networking activities, dissemination, management of resources and of the quality were developed

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The main progress beyond the project lies in the possibility to improve and strengthening the network of stakeholders and international experts working in the fields of DRR and CCA, to share important results and to further use and develop main instruments designed and tested during the project’s activities. As stressed during Second Stakeholder Forum and the Final Project and Advisory Board Meeting in Brussels, the creation of an international network of key actors/stakeholders at the EU and national level, working in the fields of DRR and CCA, will contribute to consolidate the international cooperation in Europe and globally targeting a broader sample of stakeholders from the scientific community, the industrial sectors and the public stakeholders.
Dissemination activities of the final outcomes of the project are crucial to amplify the potential impacts of the project to a wider EU and global community working in the fields of DRR and CCA. In this sense a first attempt has been to showcase the ESPREssO final results at the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (Rome 21st-23rd November 2018), where about three hundred copies of Guidelines and Vision Paper have been distributed among the participants. Indeed, the ESPREssO consortium intends to continue the dissemination trough scientific publications now in progress and focusing on specific sub-topics tackled within the project, such as risk governance, stakeholders’ engagement process, serious gaming exercises, advanced methods for risk/impact assessments.
Regarding the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of ESPREssO activities, the coherence with relevant EU policies have been framed in relation to the societal challenges indicated by the Work Programme and the most recent coordinated documents at EU level addressing DRR, CCA and Emergency planning and management. With regard to this, the final outcomes, the “Vision Paper” and the “Guidelines”, have been developed in the light of the global vision of DRR and CCA and their relevance/implications in the context of the societal, political and environmental issues. This have been investigated combining the inputs coming from the literature review in WP2 of the scientific background in terms of the existing legal and policy approaches, the suggestions and indication from the SFs and TTs as collected in WP1-WP3 and the outcomes of the intense networking activity carried out. The insight gained from all the research and outreach activities have been used as the basis for developing the two documents as well as a strong alignment towards strategic governance needs and science-policy interface frameworks, following the main international agreements nd key policy documents such as SDGs, Sendai Framework for DRR, Paris Agreement, New Urban Agenda, etc.
Both Vision Paper and Guidelines have a strong impact also in terms of target audience: public officials and institutions at all levels, policy makers, emergency response organizations, DRM operators, academics, scientific community, citizens, etc

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