Partners
Strategic partnerships & collaborative relationships
We believe developing key strategic partnerships affords new opportunities to create mutual value and enables us to offer new and enhanced benefits to the clients, organisations and groups we work with
UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction
Academic Partner
UCL IRDR leads research and teaching in risk and disaster reduction at University College London, with at least 70 academics across 12 departments and seven faculties involved in world-class research and practice in the field. It has a rapidly growing interdisciplinary PhD research centre and offers integrative masters teaching, provides a programme of public events and partnerships with humanitarian, financial, research and civil protection organisations, and achieves leadership in risk and disaster reduction both in the UK and internationally.
UCL IRDR will act as academic partner to disasterfutures, working with us to provide guidance on the latest research and new thinking in the field, facilitate access to recognised subject-matter expertise and explore how futures approaches and perspectives can beneficially be incorporated into post-graduate student learning and teaching practice, enhance research methods and contribute to the Institute’s various outreach activities. Additionally, we will seek to identify key emerging issues and trends related to disasters with a view to co-developing new research projects.
UCL IRDR is recognised as a world-leading academic and research institution in the risk, disasters and disaster risk reduction fields, engaging with a comprehensive range of active research themes including risk perceptions, natural hazards, space weather, climate change, health risks and pandemics, technological hazards, disaster engineering and disaster management
We have worked with UCL IRDR on previous projects, specifically related to the Institute’s ongoing Arctic Risks programme. We have an established and active relationship with the Institute, its staff and students and have been invited to teach and take part in a variety of their research outreach and public education activities, including introducing and facilitating futures approaches in their themed risk workshops
Building from current success, IRDR launched the Humanitarian Institute in 2017, aiming to mobilise UCL’s research, expertise, teaching and the student body to impact global humanitarian challenges
The Institute has international research partnerships with Russian, Bolivian, Japanese, Greek, Norwegian, New Zealand, Italian, and Indian partners
Knowledge exchange and making impact are key parts of IRDR’s mission and this ethos underpins the Institute’s approach of co-designing and co-producing research directly with those who can benefit from the findings.
Beyond its established capabilities in Masters and PhD teaching, IRDR:
Actively contributes to the wider academic field and published over 70 papers and book chapters in 2016-17
Engages in a wide variety of international field work, undertaking, in 2016-17, projects in Italy, Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria, New Zealand, Mexico and Chile
Undertakes independent consultancy assignments and projects, via UCL Enterprise, and also in partnership with others
Develops continuing professional development and bespoke training courses, particularly for the international audience as part of UCL’s commitment to Lifelong Learning. Previous examples include a Disaster Risk Assessment programme (co-developed with Ambiental), delivered to the World Bank
Organises and promotes an ongoing Outreach programme which includes meetings, lectures and symposia open to both the UCL community and the general public and also participates in external public engagement events and outreach activities
