XClose

UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction

Home
Menu

UCL-IRDR Third Academic Summit Report

27 July 2015

UCL-IRDR held its Third Academic Summit on Wednesday 24th June 2015.

audience10 The theme was "Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience - Strengthening the Links between Academics and Practitioners". Four panels of distinguished experts wwre convened to discuss the following topics: (a) making academic research more useful to practitioners; (b) improving communication between academics and practitioners; (c) training, teaching and exercising challenges, and (d) bridging the gaps with integrated research. Six main conclusions were reached during the discussion. (1) The work of practitioners, together with applied academic work on their behalf, is the crucible of ideas for academic research and the teaching that it informs. (2) Open minded, exploratory relationships between academics and practitioners can help facilitate needs assessments and projects that are mutually beneficial. (3) Practitioners tend to learn incrementally through an "apprenticeship" based on accumulated experience. This can be augmented by academic knowledge, which can help dispel misconceptions and introduce broad issues. (4) There is no simple barrier to overcome between academics and practitioners, as there are many kinds of the latter and many agendas. Relationships needs to be two-way. (5) Practitioners want academics to provide interdisciplinary research and training. Academics need to resist the pressures against this sort of work and ensure that promises of interdisciplinary contributions can be fulfilled. (6) Academics need to seek, and practitioners need to supply, feedback about what is beneficial, so that the right teaching, research and service will be conducted.

Please see full report for more details.