On 22nd June 2016, ResiStand’s Pertti Woitsch (Geowise) and Michael Löscher (EU-VRi) participated in the 4th Meeting of the Community of Users on Safe, Secure and Resilient Societies in Brussels, organised by the European Commission. The meeting was part of the European Commission’s Community of Users initiative to bring together the different user committees across Europe that have been created as a result of large-scale EU projects. Bringing together these communities will result in improved information exchanges between research, policy, industry and practitioners.
The Community of Users meeting provided an opportunity to learn about the different projects that are being funded by the European Commission addressing issues related to crisis and disaster management. Sessions focused on crisis management for natural hazards, disaster risk management in the field of climate-related hazards (e.g., floods, droughts, storms), and projects involving citizen involvement.
As project coordinator, Pertti Woitsch presented information on ResiStand in the session on Community of Users in action - examples of initiated networking actions at EU and national levels. ResiStand is a two-year Coordination and Support Action (CSA) that is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (grant agreement no. 700389). The project focuses on increasing disaster Resilience by establishing a sustainable process to support the Standardisation of technologies and services. Throughout the project, ResiStand’s partners will work with three Stakeholder Communities (the Standards Advisory Group, End-User Community, and Supplier Community) to understand their drivers, constraints, and expectations. This engagement will be used to create the ResiStand Roadmap and ResiStand Process to support stakeholders in the development of standards.
