Introduction
This two-day conference is jointly organised by the University of Glamorgan and the Disaster and Development Centre at Northumbria University and in partnership with South Wales Fire and Rescue Service the University of Teesside, and the Welsh Assembly Government. Speakers include representatives from universities, government agencies, NGOs and professional organistions from around the world. This partnership between universities and the organisations involved in resilience planning, emergency response and post disaster development is a key feature of the Dealing with Disasters conference series.
Building on the success of the Conferences in 2006 and 2007, a key aim of this year’s programme is to bring together practitioners, policy makers and academics from around the world to harness collective expertise; integrating theory and practice to develop timely, cost-effective solutions to dealing with disasters and to identify areas where further research and development is needed.
Conference Focus
The conference focus for 2008 is ‘Putting Resilience into Response’. Disaster reduction agendas around the world have become increasingly focussed on resilience. Whilst this is helping us identify what might be achieved through effective early warning, emergency preparedness and disaster mitigation, less attention would appear to have been paid to putting resilience into response. Furthermore, there remains only limited dialogue between disasters specialists planning the strengthening of community, business and industrial resilience and emergency responders regularly called to the consequences of failed resilience. With the likelihood of intensified disaster threats over the coming decades we hope that much will be gained by bringing together a variety of professionals from across this resilience and response spectrum to share ideas for both practice and policy.
Conference Themes
The conference programme is deliberately broad and is designed to bring together the wide range of professional and academic organisations involved in the field. It has a series of sub-themes focusing on the emergency services, disaster healthcare, natural hazards, business continuity, industrial risk management, and disaster forensics.
World Rescue Challenges
This year the conference is running in parallel with the World Rescue Challenges. This event brings together around 30 Fire and Rescue Services from around the world to compete in a series of emergency rescue simulations. We hope that delegates will both enjoy and learn from the opportunities provided to spend some time witnessing the challenges in parallel with the conference sessions and on the optional additional day of 12th July to witness the final day of the Challenges.
So, on behalf of the organisation committee, we look forward to welcoming you to Cardiff and look forward to a very engaging and constructive two days. Through your active participation we hope that the conference will make a significant contribution to the enhancement of our understanding of the causes of disasters, the effectiveness of planning for risk reduction and our ability to respond and recover quickly and effectively whenever and wherever they may occur.
Joint Conference Chairs:
| Professor Brian Hobbs Pro Vice Chancellor University of Glamorgan |
Professor Julie Mennell Dean, School of Applied Sciences Northumbria University |
