EPICentre and IRDR awarded grant for INSPIRE: Indonesia School Programme to Increase Resilience

EPICentre and UCL's Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (UCL-IRDR) have been awarded a Newton Fund Institutional Link grant for the project "INSPIRE: Indonesia School Programme to Increase Resilience".

The partnership for INSPIRE includes EPICentre, UCL-IRDR and the Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation centre (TDRMC) at Syiah Kuala University, Indonesia. The project will be led by Dr Carmine Galasso at UCL and Dr Ella Meilianda at TDMRC .

INSPIRE aims to develop an advanced, harmonized and science-based risk assessment framework for school infrastructure in Indonesia subjected to cascading earthquake-tsunami hazards. The project will also investigate hard (e.g., building retrofitting) and soft (disaster risk reduction education) mitigation measures to reduce casualties, economic loss and disruption to school infrastructure, thus increasing community resilience.

INSPIRE builds upon two recently completed EPICentre projects: the EPSRC-funded 'SCOSSO' (Safer Communities thrOugh Safer SchOols), with a focus on the Philippines, and 'CROSSH: China Resilience of Schools to Seismic Hazard', funded by the International Centre for Collaborative Research on Disaster Risk Reduction (ICCR-DRR) in China, both led by Dr. Carmine Galasso, with involvement of Prof. Dina D'Ayala and Mr. Arash Nassirpour. It also builds upon the ongoing EPICentre-IRDR 'PRISMH' (Philippines Resilience of School Infrastructure to Multi Hazard) project, also funded by Newton Fund Institutional Linksled by Prof D'Ayala, with involvement of Dr. Carmine Galasso, Dr. Joanna Faure-Walker (IRDR), Mr. Arash Nassirpour, and Mr. Marco Berolini.

INSPIRE will benefit the Indonesian Education Authority and the Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), influencing their planning and implementation of preparedness actions; the curriculum planners at the national and local level in strengthening the role of disaster risk reduction in the school curricula; the Indonesian Ministry of Public Works and Housing (PUPR) regarding the certification of building safety; locals industries, such as local engineering consultancies and construction companies in improving understanding of structural vulnerability and risks to school infrastructure. IRDR co-investigators for INSPIRE are Professor Peter Sammonds and Professor David Alexander.

Award project period: 1 March 2018- 30 August 2019 

Award amount: £122,000 

Programme: Newton Fund Institutional Links, British Council

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