Public Seminar

Futures and the New Colours of Disasters

Against a dynamic backdrop of disasters, ranging from those potentially catastrophic at the global level to those with significant impacts as more local emergencies and crises, and characterised by differing attributes and interdependencies from slow to sudden onset, disaster research is inherently anticipatory: seeking to understand both the mechanisms of a range of geo-physical hazards through to assessing how human activities and behaviours contribute to the development of vulnerabilities and exposures to potential risk.

Using ideas, themes and approaches from strategic foresight, the seminar will explore how aspects of change, both those manifest today and those potentially emergent, may be used to better conceptualise and understand how the contemporary risk landscape may evolve as a means to help develop disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery actions which are ‘fit for the future(s)’.

UCL Main Campus: Anatomy Building G04 Gavin de Beer Lecture Theatre, London | 14th November 2017