As disasters and emergencies have become increasingly complex, preparedness has became more important than ever. Building resilient communities requires the active involvement of everyone including emergency services, public authorities to citizens, businesses, researchers and civil society organisations.
The SYNERGIES project brings these different actors together to strengthen disaster preparedness across Europe. The project promotes collaboration, knowledge sharing and practical solutions that help communities better prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies
- Foster a culture of preparedness by engaging all relevant stakeholders, including citizens, first responders, public authorities, businesses, and civil society organisations
- Develop and refine practical tools addressing citizen empowerment, risk communication, and the management of spontaneous volunteers
- Validate solutions through three real-life preparedness Cases in Réunion island, Malta and Rotterdam
- Ensure the long-term sustainability and transferability of the project’s results beyond its lifetime
- Developing practical tools that help public authorities and emergency services better engage citizens before, during and after disasters;
- Improve communication strategies to support preparedness and crisis response;
- Creating solutions for coordinating and supporting spontaneous volunteers during emergencies;
- Testing and validating these tools through three real-life preparedness cases;
- Integrate the project’s solutions into the The Crisis Management Innovation Network Europe (CMINE) platform to facilitate knowledge sharing and future uptake;
- Sharing promising practices and lessons learned with disaster preparedness practitioners across Europe.
SYNERGIES brings together 17 organisations from across Europe, combining expertise in research, civil protection, emergency response, public authorities, civil society and innovation: Deep Blue srl, Webgenesys spa, Sintef as, Resilience Advisors Network, Safety Innovation Center GGMBH, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Istituto di Sociologia Internazionale di Gorizia, TARTU Ulikool, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, Save the Children Italia, International Safety Training College Limited, Sciences Reunion – Centre de Culture Scientifique Technique Et Industrielle, Regional Council Northern Region, Het Nederlandse Rode Kruis, Agence Observat Amenage Habitat Reunion, European Forum for Urban Security and Futurised Consultancy.
Efus supports the SYNERGIES partners in ensuring that the project’s results continue to benefit cities, emergency services and communities well beyond the project’s lifetime. Our role focuses on three main areas:
- Monitoring the impact: Efus coordinates activities that measure how well the project is achieving its objectives and what difference it is making in practice. We gather feedback from practitioners and stakeholders, track progress throughout the project, and help ensure that the solutions respond to the real needs of end users.
- Helping project results reach the people who need them: we work closely with all project partners to ensure that the results developed are shared, promoted and made available to the organisations that can use them.
- Supporting real world applicability of the project’s results: we help assess how the different tools can be deployed in practice, across different countries and local contexts.
2023- 2026
Asma Kaouech, Senior Programme Manager: kaouech@efus.eu
Bamba Niang, Programme Manager: niang@efus.eu
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the Consortium alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union or the granting authority can be held responsible for them. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Innovation Actions programme under the grant agreement No.101121172.
