Project RiskPACC (Integrating Risk Perception and Action to enhance Civil Protection-Citizen interaction) will start in September 2021. This three-year-long project is funded by the European Commission, Horizon 2020 Programme focusing on Disaster-Resilient Societies. The project consortium consists of 20 organisations across 10 European countries and is coordinated by Fraunhofer INT from Germany.

RiskPACC focuses on increasing disaster resilience across society by closing the so-called Risk Perception Action Gap (RPAG) that can be understood as the mismatch between how risk is perceived and acted upon, and its actual occurrence. Notably, perceptions of risk and risk management actions taken by civil protection agencies and the public, have been shown to be often misaligned.

In seeking to narrow this RPAG, RiskPACC adopts a co-creation approach to facilitate greater interaction and knowledge exchange between citizens, civil protection agencies, civil society organisations, researchers and developers to collaboratively identify resilience requirements and develop potential procedural and technical solutions to build enhanced resilience to a range of hazards. Based on this understanding, seven dedicated case studies focused on wildfires, floods, earthquakes., CBRN, terrorism, health pandemics, and multi-hazard events will be established. These will jointly design and prototype novel solutions across all risk management/disaster resilience phases (i. e. prevent/mitigate, preparedness, response, and recovery) and will be stress-tested in multiple locations and risk contexts.

Overall, RiskPACC will provide an enhanced understanding of disaster resilience from the perspective of citizens and civil protection agencies, identifying resilience building initiatives and good practices led by both. The resultant “Risk Pack” of solutions will include a framework and methodology to understand and close the RPAG; a repository of international best practice; and, tooled solutions based on new forms of digital and community-centred data and associated training guidance.

Project participants are:

• Fraunhofer Institute for Technological Trend Analysis – INT
• Trilateral Research Ltd
• Institute of Communication and Computer Systems
• The University of Warwick
• KEMEA
• European Organisation for Security
• Forum Européen pour la Sécurité urbaine
• Ceska Asocice Hasicskych Dustojniku sdruzeni
• University of Stuttgart
• Service Public Fédéral Intérieur
• Universiteit Twente
• Municipality of Eilat
• Magen David Adom in Israel
• University College London
• Crowdsense BV
• STAM SRL
• I.S.A.R. Germany Stiftung
• The Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary
• Dimos Rafinas-Pikermiou
• Comune di Padova