DARWIN continued its tradition of collaboration with similar resilience themed projects, with a recent meeting with Smart Mature Resilience (SMR). Both projects are working towards increasing resilience to disasters through the development of Resilience Management Guidelines. Matthieu Branlat, a Senior Scientist with SINTEF, travelled to Kristiansand in Norway to meet SMR. The meeting was an opportunity to present progress in the DARWIN project to another H2020 DRS-7 project.
Matthieu gave a presentation of the current situation of the development of the DARWIN Resilience Management Guidelines. The presentation explained the evolution of the guidelines, starting from the requirements that were identified earlier in the project through a major literature review and a survey of resilience experts. 
The presentation then looked at how to move on from resilience concepts, to how to put them in to practice. Matthieu also outlined that the guidelines should; help an organisation to develop a critical view of its own crisis management activities, be complementary to existing guidelines, and are intended for policy makers and decision makers. The guidelines ae not intended to replace existing resilience management guidelines, and they are not directed at front line or first responders.
Matthieu also observed a working session on the writing of policies, which provided insights in to the themes SMR is working on, and on complementarity with the DARWIN project. He also met partners of the SMR project who are working on guidelines format aspects, as well as on simulation-based training environments. This exchange was also a valuable opportunity to exchange knowledge about challenges faced and solutions found.
Smart Mature Resilience is a multi-disciplinary research project working for more resilient cities in Europe. Researchers and cities come together to enhance cities’ capacity to resist, absorb and recover from the hazardous effects of climate change.
Matthieu’s presentation can be found here.
More information about the SMR project can be found here.
