Partnering with Building Resilience Conference
Wed, 02 Sep 2015 10:04:00 BST
5th International Conference on Building Resilience was recently successfully held at Newcastle City Hall, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, from 15th - 17th July 2015. This conference was organised by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Built Environment Research (CIBER), School of Architecture and Built Environment, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment at the University of Newcastle; the Global Centre for Disaster Resilience, Huddersfield University, UK. Other partners include United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Making Cities Resilient campaign, International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC).
Collection of abstracts of keynotes and papers submitted to, double blind peer reviewed, and accepted for the 5th International Building Resilience Conference (ISBN - 978-0-9943652-0-0) can be accessed here (6MB).
GDRC had 2 research publications: Policy Analysis in Prioritising Societal Challenges- the Case of Sri Lanka; and Professional doctorates: applicability to the construction industry in increasing societal resilience to disasters.
Awards for best papers
There were awards sponsored by the International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment. Dr Yan Chang-Richards, Professor Suzanne Wilkinson, Dr Erica Seville and David Brunsdon from University of aucjalnd, New Zealand were the winners of the best paper award. Their paper was entitled: “A systems approach to managing human resources in disaster recovery projects”. Paper entitled: An integrated framework for resilience management of inter-network city infrastructures” written by Professor S. Thomas Ng and Dr. Frank, Jun Xu and paper entitled “Analysing community needs and skills for enhancing disaster resilience in the built environment” written by Prof. Srinath Perera, Onaopepo Adeniyi, Solomon Olusola Babatunde. Received the highly commended awards.
ANDROID Doctoral Workshop
Another feature of the conference was the ANDROID Doctoral Workshop on Building Resilience. This doctoral workshop aimed to explore research on Building Resilience with specific attention to disaster preparedness and response. Although building ‘resilient’ systems has long been prioritised by both industry and academia, an awareness of increasing natural and man-made hazards has renewed the call for alternative conceptual and operational understandings of disaster management. PhD students from any discipline who are involved in research germane to disaster management and resilience building were invited to submit papers. The workshop provided a platform for doctoral candidates from different disciplines to share their theoretical and empirical insights on research relating to building resilience.
Photo below: some of the Doctoral School participants
Communities around the world are faced with the threat of disasters on a daily basis.
National governments, local government associations, international, regional and civil society organisations, donors, the private sector, academia and professional associations as well as every citizen needs to be engaged in reducing their risk to disasters. All these stakeholders must play their part in contributing to building disaster resilient communities. The 2015 International Conference on Building Resilience encouraged debate on individual, institutional and societal coping strategies to address the challenges associated with disaster risk.
6th International Conference of the Building Resilience International Conference will be held in Auckland, New Zealand in 2016 and further details will be available about this in the near future.
Photo above: (L to R)
Professor Richard Haigh, Dr Alice Chang, Dr Jason VonMeding, Professor Dilanthi Amaratunga, Dr Catherine Forbes and Associate Professor Thayaparan Gajendran.
