Vacancy Announcement: Executive Director, IRDR 08 Dec 2009
ICSU, the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN ISDR), invite applications for the position of Executive Director of the new Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) programme. The Executive Director will head the International Programme Office which is being established in Beijing—the first time an international office of this type has been hosted in Asia.
China to host new international disaster research programme 13 Nov 2009
China will host the office of the new international programme, Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR). The International Programme Office for IRDR will be established in Beijing at the Headquarters of the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE).
ICSU, along with the other IRDR co-sponsors—the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN ISDR)—selected Beijing following an international call for offers The office will be jointly funded by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami clearly attracted worldwide
attention and pushed the issue up the agenda. On 13 January 2005,
ahead of the Kobe World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction,
the Executive Board issued a statement
on the tsunami identifying both urgent and long-term needs and
stressing the importance of bringing good science to bear effectively
on policy-making (see ICSU
Insight January 2005).
At its meeting in April 2005, the Executive Board gave the go-ahead
for a scoping study on hazards, which was reported to the General
Assembly in October 2005. A Planning Group was established to develop
the details of the new programme and propose how it might be implemented.
The planning and consultation process for this programme was extensive,
in recognition of the need for the widest interaction and debate
among potential partners and sponsors. At key stages in the development,
the advice and guidance of the ICSU family was sought.
Delegates at the 29th ICSU General Assembly in Maputo, Mozambique
(October 2008) decided to 'establish a major new interdisciplinary
programme of ten years' duration entitled Integrated Research
on Disaster Risk – the challenge of natural andhuman–induced
environmental hazards (acronym: IRDR), in collaboration with
other international organizations', and 'to recognize IRDR as an
Interdisciplinary Body'.
The IRDR programme addresses the impacts of disasters on regional and global
scales and brings together the combined talents of the natural, socio-economic,
health and engineering sciences from around the world. IRDR will focus on
hazards related to geophysical, oceanographic, climate and weather trigger
events – and even space weather and impact by near-Earth objects.
There are three major research objectives:
to address the gaps in knowledge and methods for the effective identification
of disaster risks;
to better understand just how decisions can contribute to hazards
becoming disasters – or reduce their effects; and,
to develop knowledge-based actions that will reduce risk and curb
losses.
Three cross-cutting themes will support the objectives: capacity
building, including mapping capacity for disaster reduction and building
self-sustaining capacity at various levels for different hazards; the
development of case studies and demonstration projects; and assessment,
data management and monitoring of hazards, risks and disasters.
An important element of the programme is the development of case studies
that will analyse disasters caused by natural phenomena to establish what
was done well and what caused failure – to avoid repeating mistakes.
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