DARWIN project coordinator, Dr. Ivonne Herrera, recently attended Safety Days-Before, during and after crises in our region, for the middle of Norway region. The event brought together emergency responders, emergency managers, policy makers, as well as academics and researchers for two days in April in Norway.
Safety Days aimed to share experience and knowledge in order to optimise crisis management and emergency response. Collaboration across sectors was a key theme for this event, and as such was of particular relevance to DARWIN, as we aim to develop DARWIN Resilience Management Guidelines (DRMG).
Ivonne attended sessions on emergency preparedness in the health sector, especially pertinent to the development of the DRMG. ISS (Italian Public Health Institute), the DARWIN healthcare partner recently decided to test the DRMG in the following scenarios:
- Emergency management of a severe influenza pandemic break out, and:
- Organ transportation in flight facing severe weather conditions.
The Norwegian Red Cross and the local firefighting department shared knowledge about increasing emergency preparedness and improving risk management during their presentations. These are very important learnings for the DARWIN project, especially as they bring the project in to contact with potential end-users of the DRMG. It is essential to DARWIN that the DRMG are relevant and user-friendly to European end-users. DARWIN has established a Community of Practitioners (DCoP) in order to contribute to the validity and usability of the DRMG. As a result of this cross-sector collaboration encouraged at Safety Days, the Norwegian Red Cross and the Mid-Norway region firefighting department will be invited to join the DCoP.
Thanks to participation at Safety Days, Ivonne Herrera was invited to attend a local emergency preparedness exercise on 20th May.
Safety Days is an annual event where authorities, organisations and researchers meet to improve societal and organisational safety. It is organised by the Reliability and Safety Studies Centre (ROSS) of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). ROSS was established as a multidisciplinary research centre comprising SINTEF ITC (the DARWIN coordinator organisation), Safetec employees, St. Olav Hospital and Middle of Norway regional emergency preparedness sections, as well as diverse academic departments in NTNU.
For more information on Saftey Days see: www.ntnu.no/sikkerhetsdagene
For more information on the Reliability and Safety Studies Centre of NTNU see: www.ntnu.edu/ross
