Crisis and Disaster Risk Management

‘Disasters’ and ‘crises’ associated with natural, human and technological systems are common place in the modern world. Accordingly, societies need to be better able to reduce the risks and prepare to cope with worst-case scenarios. The Crisis and Disaster Risk Management (CDRM) group will address the most pressing ‘crisis and disaster risk management’ challenges (i.e. the UN’s SDGs). We will develop strategic transdisciplinary research capability (within ULSB and across the University) that is needed for the sustainable enhancement of more resilient societies, commerce, and developmental practices by integrating activities across all the risk management phases. Our research will foster cutting-edge and impactful research through externally funded projects and through joint PhD supervisions. The CDRM Research Group will achieve this by working with local and national stakeholders to maximise the relevance and impacts of our work, through the following objectives:

delivering excellent transdisciplinary research that will generate whole-system decision-support to help inform strategic decision-makers/stakeholders who are facing multiple, interacting challenges impacting societies in the UK, across Europe and globally;
promoting scientific understanding and theoretical development of uncertainty, risk creation and complexity in the (re)development and management of resilient and sustainable societies; and
enabling scientifically informed decision-making that can proactively address risks to society and the complex systems that society has become so reliant upon.

People

Professor Lee Bosher

Professor of Risk

Marketing, Innovation, Strategy and Operations, School of Business

Email: lsb23@leicester.ac.uk
Web: Professor Lee Bosher

Expertise and interest

Social scientist/geographer. Interested in Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and the integration of proactive risk management strategies into the decision-making processes of key stakeholders and communities. Other research interests are related to, sustainable development, vulnerability reduction; the technical, social, environmental and institutional roles in improving the resilience and sustainability of society and critical infrastructure.

Projects

ValBGI - Valuing the benefits of Blue/Green Infrastructure for flood resilience, natural capital and urban development (Viet Nam)
Luanhe Living Lab - Lessons learnt from synergies and trade-offs between SDGs at the sub-national scale (China)
BUGIS - Blue-Green Infrastructure in Semarang (Indonesia)

Dr Nibedita Ray-Bennett

Associate Professor in Risk Management

Marketing, Innovation, Strategy and Operations, School of Business

Email: nsrb1@leicester.ac.uk
Web: Dr Nibedita Ray-Bennett

Expertise and interest

I am a social scientist specialising in disaster risk reduction and international development at the interface with public health. My research is inter-disciplinary and transdisciplinary and it focuses primarily on reducing avoidable disaster deaths in low-and middle-income countries through novel theories, methods, interventions, lifesaving Kits, networking, public engagement, and advocacy.

Avoidable disaster deaths that I focus on are maternal and adolescent girls’ deaths from unsafe and post-abortion complications, and snakebite and drowning deaths during or post disasters.

In collaboration with Kansai University, I founded the Avoidable Deaths Network (ADN) in 2019. On 12 March 2023, I launched a public engagement global campaign called ‘International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths’ (IAD4AD) and the campaign slogan ‘Disaster Deaths Are Avoidable’. The global campaign aims to raise the visibility of indirect disaster deaths, missing persons and to understand the causes and circumstances that lead to avoidable disaster deaths.

Projects

Muhammad Asad Tahir

PhD Student and Graduate Teaching Assistant

Marketing, Innovation, Strategy and Operations, School of Business

Email: mat54@leicester.ac.uk

Expertise and interest

I am interested in Fake News, Digital Disinformation, Post-truth, and Crisis Communication. Furthermore, information pollution as a threat to environment and infosphere is also within my area of research interest.

Dr Georgios Patsiaouras

Associate Professor in Marketing and Consumption

Marketing, Innovation, Strategy and Operations, School of Business

Email: gp83@leicester.ac.uk
Web: Dr Georgios Patsiaouras

Expertise and interest

Research interests include sustainable consumption, sustainability communication, water scarcity and management of water resources. Current research includes geopolitical risk in international markets and the concept of risk in marketing theory and practice.

Dr Ayse Yildiz

Lecturer in Risk

Marketing, Innovation, Strategy and Operations, School of Business

Email: ay111@leicester.ac.uk
Web: Dr Ayse Yildiz

Expertise and interest

Ayse is a lecturer in Risk at the University of Leicester, UK, specialising in child-centred disaster risk reduction. Her research focuses on disaster preparedness, risk perception, disaster education, community-based disaster resilience, and risk communication. She has experience working with children and young people, as well as diverse government agencies, local teams, schools, and students from different cultures and religions.

Dr Ayman Omar

Lecturer in Finance

Economics, Finance and Accounting, School of Business

Email: amo18@leicester.ac.uk
Web: Dr Ayman Omar

Expertise and interest

I am interested in climate-related finance, carbon markets and the financing of projects that are related to climate, carbon and disaster risk management. The link to disaster risk management is through the financing channel, as I am interested in looking into the characteristics of financing (provider’s side) and institutional features (e.g. recipient’s side: at country and project’s level) that affect amount, type and duration of financing.

Professor John Maltby

Professor of Differential Psychology

Psychology and Vision Sciences

Email: jm148@leicester.ac.uk
Web: Professor john Maltby

Expertise and interest

Research interested psychological and community models of resilience. The research themes span from psychological mechanisms around the use of artificial intelligence for sustainable land management, well-being and resilience assessment, and developing psychological models that encapsulate engagement with medical, psychological, technological, and societal inquiries.

Aliasghar Aliakbari

PhD Student and Graduate Teaching Assistant

Marketing, Innovation, Strategy and Operations, School of Business

Email: aa1341@leicester.ac.uk

Expertise and interest

Investigating the impact of entrepreneurial marketing strategies (or other marketing strategies) on business performance during a time of crisis.

Dr Jamie Wardman

Associate Professor of Risk

Marketing, Innovation, Strategy and Operations, School of Business

Email: jw935@leicester.ac.uk
Web: Dr Jamie Wardman

Expertise and interest

My research is broadly concerned with how risk, crises, and uncertainty are perceived, managed and communicated by organisations and acted on by different cultural groups. I’ve worked on a wide variety of interdisciplinary projects on topics ranging from terrorism to climate change. I also serve as Editor of the Journal of Risk Research and as a board member for the Society for Risk Analysis – Europe.

Projects

I was recently involved as a steering group member of the Royal Society COVID-19 evidence review evaluating the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on reducing the spread of the disease.

I’m currently involved in a number of other projects addressing questions such as the occurrence of risk related ‘infodemics’ in the media and the role of ‘psychological distance’ on responses to the risk of modern slavery.

Selected publications

Balzter, H., Macul, M., Delaney, B., Tansey, K., Espirito-Santo, F., Ofoegbu, C., Petrovskii, S., Forchtner, B., Nicholes, N., Payo, E., Heslop-Harrison, P., Burns, M., Basell, L., Egberts, E., Stockley, E., Desorgher, M., Upton, C., Whelan, M. & Yildiz, A. (2023): Loss and Damage from Climate Change: Knowledge Gaps and Interdisciplinary Approaches. Sustainability 15(15):11864. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151511864

Chmutina K., Von Meding J., Lizarralde G., and Bosher L.S. (2023), ‘Standardised indicators for ‘resilient cities’: The folly of devising a technical solution to a political problem’, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1108/IJDRBE-10-2022-0099

Hill B., Liang Q., Bosher L.S., Chen H. and A. Nicholson, (2023), ‘A systematic review of Natural Flood Management modelling; approaches, limitations, and potential solutions’, Journal of Flood Risk Management, e12899 https://doi.org/10.1111/jfr3.12899

Ofoegbu, C., Balzter, H. and Phillips, M. (2023): Evidence Synthesis towards a Holistic Landscape Decisions Framework: Insight from the Landscape Decisions Programme. Preprints.org 2023, 2023061723. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202306.1723.v1

Ray-Bennett NS, Clarke K, Mendez D (2022) Sendai framework’s global targets A and B: opinions from the global platform for disaster risk reduction’s ignite stage 2019. Int J Disaster Risk Sci 13:651–663. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-022-00432-3

Williams S.N., Dienes K., Jaheed J., Wardman J.K., Petts J. (2023). Effectiveness of communications in enhancing adherence to public health behavioural interventions: a COVID-19 evidence review. Phil.Trans.R.Soc. A381: 20230129.https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2023.0129-

Events

Semester 2 - Professor Ksenia Chmutina is Professor of Disaster Studies at Loughborough University, and will give a talk about why ‘Disasters are not natural’ (date tbc)

Semester 3 - Professor Duncan Shaw is Professor of Operational Research and Critical Systems at the University of Manchester.

Other events, including talks by PGRs/researchers are still being planned.