Impact at the end of the project
The ARCSAR project team has disseminated its findings, lessons learned and documents in a variety of fora throughout the project. Some examples of this effort are:
• EU regional days, with JRCC Northern Norway presenting the project to a variety of regional stakeholders from the public and private sector.
• Arctic Frontiers two years in a row, where ARCSAR members organized sessions and seminars, and results of the work conducted under WP2 were presented by Dylan Jones from University of Portsmouth.
• Arctic Circle Assembly 3 years in a row, with an organized side session where we have presented the work conducted under ARCSAR, but also given voice to other projects stemming from ARCSAR.
• Norwegian Research Council events (January 2023) presenting the project to the Norwegian ministry of justice and public security, the Norwegian Police Directorate, the Norwegian Armed forces, and other public bodies.
• UArctic Annual Conference 2023, at which MTU presented ARCSAR to the assembled representatives of the 200+ affiliated institutions.
• ARCSAR Case Study Book, under publication.
These efforts have resulted in a wide audience learning about ARCSAR, and interest being generated in follow-on work to pursue further objectives.
Arctic Lessons Learned Arena: Through ARCSAR a need was identified by SAR practitioners for a method to capture and share information and knowledge gained from their experiences. Therefore, ARCSAR Network members created the Arctic Lessons Learned Arena, which is a platform to share after-action reports and lessons learned from both real incidents and SAR exercises. Financing was secured from the Norwegian and Canadian governments. The Arctic Council’s Emergency Planning Preparedness and Response (EPPR) Working Group led the project to develop the Arena; and the UArctic Network of Universities involved in Arctic related research is also involved. The Arctic Lessons Learned Arena represents an enduring legacy of ARCSAR for valuable information sharing among SAR practitioners.
https://lla.ac/(opens in new window) Harmonised Guidelines for Nuclear and Radiological Accident Management in ANA Region: In 2019, none of the Nordic countries had procedures to handle maritime SAR operations in nuclear and radiological pollution / risk environments. This was pointed out by an ARCSAR report and a group of ARCSAR Network members decided to address this gap. Since then, in a series of projects: harmonized guidelines to handle this type of incident have been created; action cards for practitioners have been developed; and education modules on the topic are in the process of being developed, including a deeper dive into risk analysis and perception.
UK Arctic Strategy (name TBC): References to the work of ARCSAR via written evidence submitted by the University of Portsmouth have been incorporated into a recent publication by the UK House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee: ‘Our friends in the North: UK strategy towards the Arctic’.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5804/ldselect/ldintrel/8/8.pdf(opens in new window) .
Cruise Ship Evacuation Video: Through the experiences and observations gained during the ARCSAR LIVEX22 exercise, a need was identified for improved guidance to cruise ship passengers, regarding how to evacuate a vessel in the event of an emergency. Therefore, funding was secured and at the time of writing an Evacuation Video is being developed, by collaboration between ARCSAR partners JRCC-Norway and AECO, the Arctic Expedition Cruise Organisation; with involvement also of the Arctic Council’s EPPR Working Group.
University Masters Student Exchange: In 2023 two of the ARCSAR university partners – University of Portsmouth, UK & Nord University, Norway – began a structured collaboration on themes arising from ARCSAR. The first element is a programme of Masters student exchange, aimed at students who will become the next generation of emergency managers in their respective countries or organizations. The second element is a programme of staff exchange. The third element is a project to address monitoring of critical infrastructure and deployment of underwater assets, development of which is underway at time of writing.
The academic and managerial implication results of deliverable D2.1 were published in the European Journal of Operational Research during this reporting period:
Jones DF, Labib A, Willis, KO, Costello J, Ouelhadj D, Ikonen, E & Dominguez-Cainzos, M (2023), Multi-criteria mapping and prioritization of Arctic and North Atlantic maritime safety and security needs, European Journal of Operational Research, 307, 827-841, doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2022.09.002
