COPE Socials: Strengthening links between technologies and society for European disaster resilience

The Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research (COPE) is continuing its networking events, this time in person and on Zoom. For each meeting, we invite experts to talk for approximately 30 minutes, followed by a 15 minute Q&A.

Anne Bach Nielsen, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and Nina Blom Andersen, reader at University College Copenhagen will talk about the LINKS EU project “Strengthening links between technologies and society for European disaster resilience”. LINKS is a comprehensive study on disaster governance in Europe that covers five types of hazards in four different countries. In recent years, social media and crowdsourcing (SMCS) have been integrated into disaster risk management for improved information gathering and collaboration across European communities. The effectiveness of SMCS on European disaster resilience, however, remains unclear, due to the use of SMCS in disasters in different ways and under diverse conditions. From this point of departure, the overall objective of LINKS is to strengthen links between technologies and society for improved European disaster resilience. The presentation will in particular touch on the projects’ findings concerning the degree to which use of social media, and social media crowdsourcing are integrated parts of disaster governance in the four countries, and what seems to be potentials and obstacles to reach the citizens by applying these technologies.