As risks are not “objective” but socially and culturally constructed, disaster management which is aware, respects, and makes use of local cultural aspects will be not only more effective but, at the same time, also improve the community’s disaster coping capacities. CARISMAND is setting out to identify these factors, to explore existing gaps and opportunities for improvement of disaster policies and procedures, and to develop a comprehensive toolkit which will allow professional as well as voluntary disaster managers to adopt culturally-aware everyday practices. This goal will be achieved by approaching the links, and gaps, between disaster management, culture and risk perception from the broadest possible multi-disciplinary perspective and, simultaneously, developing a feedback-loop between disaster management stakeholders and citizens to establish, test, and refine proposed solutions for culturally-informed best practices in disaster management. Whilst experts from a variety of fields (in particular legal, IT, cognitive science, anthropology, psychology, sociology) will undertake a comprehensive collation of existing knowledge and structures, a number of Citizen Summits and Stakeholder Assemblies will be organised. Systematically, CARISMAND will use an approach that examines natural, man-made and technical disasters, placing at the centre of attention specific aspects that affect culturally informed risk perceptions, eg whether disasters are caused intentionally or not, the different “visibility” of hazards, and various time scales of disasters such as slow/fast onset and short- and long-term effects. By organising six Citizen Summits (two per disaster category per year in two separate locations) where such disaster risks are prevalent , and three Stakeholder Assemblies (one per year) where the results are discussed through a wide cross-sectional knowledge transfer between disaster managers from different locations as well as from different cultural backgrounds.

STAR BIOS 2 (Structural Transformation to Attain Responsible BIOSciences),coordinated by the University of Tor Vergata (IT), has been designed to respond to the Topic ISSI 5 (Workprogramme Science With And For Society). The general aim of project is that of contributing to the advancement of the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) strategy, which underpins Horizon 2020, by promoting 6 Action Plans (APs) oriented to attain a RRI structural change in research institutions from Europe and developing 3 further APs in non-european entities, all active in the field of biosciences. This strategy is geared to cope more in general with one of the main risk, for European research, i.e., its inadequate connection with society, by promoting its increasing alignment, in terms of both process and outcomes, with the needs and values of European society. This entails, in the RRI perspective, an increasing involvement of stakeholders at any level of the research and innovation process. The project has three main focuses: 1) Develop RRI-oriented structural change processes in the already mentioned institutions involved in biosciences research. This aim will be pursued through designing, implementing and evaluating RRI Action Plans. In order to secure the results emerging from the APs, a sustainability strategy will be developed and implemented during the project lifespan. APs will be supported by a central technical assistance and the project will be monitored and assessed. 2) Develop a learning process concerning: a) resistances and barriers to RRI (which are they, how they manifest themselves, which impact they have, etc.); b) key factors favouring or supporting RRI; c) strategic options and RRI-oriented tools. 3) Develop a sustainable model for RRI in biosciences.