The ongoing pandemic and climate crisis have taught us hard lessons about the systemic impact of compounding disasters. Stakeholders in disaster risk management are faced with the challenge to adapt their risk reduction policies and emergency plans but lack the tools to account for the cross-sectoral impacts and dynamic nature of the risks involved. The PARATUS project aims to fill this gap by developing an open-source platform for dynamic risk assessment that allows to analyse and evaluate multi-hazard impact chains, risk reduction measures, and disaster response scenarios in the light of systemic vulnerabilities and uncertainties. These services will be co-created within a unique transdisciplinary consortium of research organisations, NGOs, SMEs, first and second responders, and local and regional authorities. To gain a deeper understanding of multi-hazard impact chains, PARATUS will first conduct forensic analysis on historical disaster events, augment historical disaster databases with hazard interactions and sectorial impacts, and exploit remote sensing data with artificial intelligence methods. Building on these insights, PARATUS will then develop new exposure and vulnerability analysis methods that enable systemic risk assessment across sectors (e.g. humanitarian, transportation, communication) and geographic settings (e.g. islands, mountains, megacities). These methods will be used to analyse risk changes across space and time and to develop new scenarios and risk mitigation options together with stakeholders, using innovative serious games and social simulations. The results will be hosted on two stakeholder hubs related to crisis management and humanitarian relief, and provide stakeholders with a range of tools for risk reduction planning in dynamic multi-hazard environments. The service-oriented approach with active stakeholder involvement will maximise uptake and impact of the project, and help to increase Europe’s resilience to compounding disasters.

The SYNERGY project intends to promote preparedness with the coherent and synergic involvement of the different actors of disaster management. These actors include first and second responders, citizens, communities, education systems, authorities and public administrations, business companies and practitioners. The project will concentrate on five needs identified for disaster preparedness: i) involvement of all relevant actors in building preparedness; ii) strengthening preparedness education and training; iii) communicating with citizens; iv) management of spontaneous volunteers; v) ensuring sustainability of solutions for preparedness. To address these needs SYNERGIES is leveraging the knowledge, experience, and results of five H2020 projects (ENGAGE, RESILOC, LINKS, IMPACT, BUILDERS), and one nationally funded project (Ready2Help). The results of these projects will be integrated with practitioners' best practices and experiences, revised, and improved, increasing their level of maturity. Targeted research, including social science expertise, will be dedicated to covering remaining gaps and supporting the integration work. Three Real Preparedness Cases will offer the opportunity to orient the project work, evaluate the progress and demonstrate the final results. These Preparedness Cases are real situations in which stakeholders intend to improve preparedness with a better involvement and empowerment of citizens. The SYNERGIES activities will last 36 months with a Consortium composed of 16 partners, representative of all the types of stakeholders in DRM, including research organizations, business companies, first and second responders, civil society organizations, and authorities.

Europe is experiencing a series of challenges: a migration crisis, ongoing austerity, the polarisation of politics and the rise of far right nationalism, and Brexit and its impact on European relationships (including the UK – Ireland issue). The project has utilised themes of borders and fragmentation to identify, develop and retain young people as leaders, thereby optimising the opportunities for youth participation in Europe. The project aimed to develop and reinforce partner networks and increase their capacity to work at transnational level, share and confront ideas, practices and methods. Three main themes were addressed: i) Empathise: building resilience and inspiring young people whilst promoting awareness of key issues affecting Europe ii) Influence: creating test and learn models of youth governance and student engagement iii) Involve: incorporating learning that identifies and remove barriers to volunteering for young people and particularly those with the fewest opportunities, and strengthening the voice of young people from Western Europe at this critical period. Four Red Cross national societies: in the UK, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and Flanders (Belgium) have engaged 77 young volunteers from their youth networks, looking to innovate and increase the scope of the volunteering offer in each of the four participating countries and in doing so, have increased the opportunities to attract different types of volunteers. Activities delivered: I) Delivery of a virtual “Youth as the Agents of Behavioural Change” to 11 young volunteers from the UK, and Republic of Ireland, a programme which aims to transform attitudes and behaviours, and develop personal resilience II) Delivery of “Youth on the Run” to 21 young volunteers from the UK, Republic of Ireland and Belgium, to inspire greater understanding of refugee and asylum issues III) To enable expansion of these programmes in the UK, Belgium and Ireland, “Train the Trainer” courses supported 14 young peer educators to deliver subsequent programmes IV) A Student Skillshare brought together 31 young students from the Netherlands, UK, Belgium and Ireland to explore models of engaging university groups to encourage humanitarian activities V) Comparative analysis and sharing of learning through Transnational meetings explored leadership/ governance models for young people within the four organisations VI) Delivery of advocacy objectives in Europe wide forums, though participation in European youth meetings and through webinar dissemination of information. For the young people who took part in the programmes they improved their knowledge of the situation of young people in other countries and situations and developed positive attitudes towards others at risk of marginalisation, but also achieved high quality skills that can encourage and facilitate mobility and employability, and develop personal resilience, confidence and feel empowered to participate in volunteering and leading positive action. The development of peer education has improved young people’s knowledge, skills and understanding, support personal development and encouraged active citizenship. The organisations collaborated and then throughout the pandemic have worked together to successfully problem solve, in turn strengthening cross border relationships. All partners have been able to explore and share learning to develop best practices to support youth participation and leadership, and now have an increased ability to expand and sustain the diversity of their youth volunteering base. Dissemination and legacy activities have shared the results of the project with stakeholders at local, national and EU level. For example, 4 young participants from the YABC programme collaborated to run a taster session to British Red Cross staff and volunteers as part of the British Red Cross Virtual Assembly on 7 October 2021; the project has been shared with participants of the Red Cross/Red Crescent European Youth Network, and the International Federation of the Red Cross World Youth Meeting 17-23 June 2019. The legacy of the project will be the development and strengthening of transnational links between the four partners, the expansion of the two training programmes, potentially allowing hundreds of young people to benefit from it through delivery by peer educators; improved governance and youth representation within the participating organisations, and continued exchange of good practices through transnational learning and advocacy.