Improving Emergency and Crisis Management
The aim of the project is to improve the capacity of emergency and
crisis management in the Swedish society. Emergencies and crises are
seen as acute primary courses of events with related consequences in the
society. The acute primary courses of events are categorised in
accidents , criminal behaviour , infectious diseases , social conflicts
and breakdowns in infrastructures . The management processes are a
context in which decision-makers in different levels from different
organizations have to co-ordinate their decision-making.
Results
from earlier studies indicate that decision-makers seem
- to be surprised when there is an emergency or a crisis,
- to lack in anticipation of the courses of events,
- to lack in the understanding of the whole situation quickly enough, and
- to lack in building up the emergency management functions fast enough in relation to the development of the emergency.
The conclusion is that the decision-makers´ co-ordinated cognitive
capacity is not used in the best way. The focus of the research is to
look for conditions supporting the co-ordinated cognitive work of the
decision-makers.
The management in real emergencies and crises
will be analysed. Training situations will also be analysed. The
capacity to manage the situation will be analysed in relation to the
possibility in the management functions to work with different cognitive
tasks. The aim is to build up knowledge about how to design management
functions in order to be better to cope with the beginning phases of
emergencies and crises.
The project is financed by the Swedish
Rescue Services Agency and the Swedish Emergency Management Agency.
The research group:
Lars Fredholm, Professor at the Department of Fire Safety Engineering,
Lund University.
Mattias Åström. PhD student.
Christian
Uhr. PhD student
Last modified 7 Dec 2007