Consulting, Training, and Research Services

Services we offer

The UCL Warning Research Centre offers a range of services from undergraduate and postgraduate warnings modules, research, student internships and work placements, to external Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and training and a range of consulting services. We engage with a wide range of stakeholders via in-person, online, and hybrid events and conferences, as well as offering a wealth of resources via our website. We actively share warning news, research and experiences via social media, our website, newsletters, all to help create a community around warnings.

Consultancy:

We offer a range of consulting services for differing budgets, including:

• Evidence and systematic reviews, research, data analysis, evaluation and impact studies
• Policy guidance and design, and horizon scanning
• Serving on scientific advisory boards and speaker engagements
• Organising, running, or hosting events and workshops

Professional Training:

• Designing and delivering bespoke industry training, courses, webinars
• Continuing Professional Development (CDP) courses
• Delivering training online or in person globally

Research:

• Conducting research funded by international funding bodies
• Postdoctoral research fellowships
• PhD research projects and community
• Highly interdisciplinary adopting qualitative and quantitative research methodologies

Events:

• Seminars and webinars with world leading warning experts on a range of topics
• All events are recorded and made available via our YouTube Channel
• Global UCL Warning Research Conference held in 2023
• Workshops and commissioned activities
• Supporting external conferences and partners

Teaching:

• Teaching undergraduate and postgraduate modules on warnings, hazards, and risk
• Attracting partner organisations for BSc and MSc dissertation projects
• Offering Internships and work placements

Resources:

• Resources database to find key warning publications, books, and reports
• Warning database developed under the World Meteorological Organisation World Weather Research Programme

Website and Engagement:

• Our website is updated with resources and blogs
• Newsletters providing quarterly updates
• Online social media for news, events, and warning research and publications
• Public engagement events

Our clients include

We are delighted to showcase a selection of our work with clients. We are open to future opportunities and should you have a query, please do not hesitate to contact us on wrc@ucl.ac.uk.

UK National Preparedness Commission

Report: Enhancing Warnings
This report makes key recommendations about how warnings can be made more effective in the UK. Guidance on how to implement these recommendations are provided, and other report was followed by a Roundtable discussion of the report chaired by Lord Toby Harris, of the National Preparedness Commission

Article: Preparedness efforts for health threats: the gap between detection and action
This article looks at the gap between detection and action concerning preparedness efforts for health threats.

Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) of the World Bank)

Report and presentations: Designing Inclusive, Accessible Early Warning Systems: Good Practices and Entry Points
This report involved global research and engagement with World Bank staff to present key lessons and areas of good practice using specific examples, along with recommendations and entry points for inclusive, accessible early warning systems (EWS). Aimed at development practitioners, especially World Bank staff, the report established best-practice ways of working with communities and governments to provide evidence-based approaches to enhance the inclusion of different social groups in EWS, depending on the local context. The research also identified entry points for the inclusivity components of multi-hazard impact-based EWS. The report had a launch event with a wide range of UN agency leaders as part of the panel (including UN Women, UNDP, and the World Bank). The findings were presented at over 5 international conferences during 2023-24, including several workshops. In addition, an online training module was devised with GFDRR World Bank to help train staff on inclusive, accessible warning systems.

UN Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) office

Report and presentations: Inclusive early warning early action: checklist and implementation guide
The checklist and implementation guide for inclusive early warning and early action was developed as part of the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Pacific initiative to contribute to the implementation of the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) Executive Action Plan 2023–2027 to ensure that early warning systems are people-centred and tailored to the specific needs of various groups. Whilst warning checklists had been developed in recent years, critique remained that it was difficult to know how to fulfil the requirements. This report not only devised a checklist with explanations resources, and examples, but also provided the very first implementation guide for warnings. This outlined suggestions on how to embed warnings within communities in the Pacific to ensure that early warning systems are gender-responsive and disability-inclusive, showing how warnings can be implemented to be more inclusive without necessarily requiring additional resources.

Everbridge

Report and presentation: From Policy to Practice: Case Studies in Resilience and Public Warning
Bringing together academia and industry expertise to contribute to the advancement of societal resilience, the report navigates the complexities of translating policy formulations into actionable practices, fostering a deeper understanding of effective implementation. Critical when most of the globe’s population receives warnings via their mobile phones. The report was followed up with a launch event, recorded and available via our YouTube page. 

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Report: Translating Warnings into Actions: How we can improve early warning systems to protect communities
This report was commissioned to assist in promoting global actions for improved early warning response, and was supported by the Global Disaster Preparedness Center.

Briefing Notes: Warnings Briefing Note series
The IFRC Warning Briefing Note series was commissioned to focus  on building warnings for multiple hazards to aid those working on policy and practice. The Briefing Notes series are two-page documents that are designed to provide quick and accessible insight into various aspects of warnings, providing state of the art of research, core needs, and high-level guidance and recommendations. The series is supported by Anticipation Hub and Global Disaster Preparedness Centre (GDPC).

NASA

Project: Disasters Avoided
Commissioned report and articles for NASAs project ‘Disasters Avoided’ documenting examples where action was taken, including through warnings, so a disaster was avoided despite a major hazard.

CUAMM Doctors with Africa

Training: CUAMM Doctors with Africa
Doctors with Africa CUAMM are the first non-governmental organization focused on healthcare to be recognized by the Italian government. As Italy’s leading organization working to protect and improve the well-being and health of vulnerable communities in sub-Saharan Africa, we developed a four-day online training course and delivered this twice to over 25 members of staff across Africa to help generate understanding and the management of warnings for health and other natural hazard risks.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Database: UCL Warning Database
The UCL WRC attracted the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to be selected as the organisation to take ownership of the world’s first global warnings database developed under their World Weather Research Programme, HI-Weather Project. The WRC had previously advised the HI-Weather Project, that developed a database of high impact weather warning case studies from around the globe that facilitates scientists and practitioners to review, analyse and learn from previous experience through the lens of the value chain. That project ended in 2024, but the WRC has made this database available by making it publicly accessible and is currently expanding its scope to cover a wider range of hazards, such as geological hazards and enabling the aspects of multi-hazard warnings to be explored. The ongoing operation of the database will feed into the development of new collaboration models of research and teaching around warnings, stakeholder development.