Academia & Research Institutions

The impacts of natural hazards on society can be significantly reduced through the application of sound, evidence-based investments in disaster risk reduction.

The natural sciences have generated a good understanding of the causes and behaviour of most natural hazards and together with the engineering sciences have enabled the development of effective surveillance and prediction systems. The health sciences have made similar achievements for health-related hazards and impacts. The social sciences have created a growing body of understanding of human resilience, the factors that influence people's attitude to risk and behaviour during a crisis, as well as the effectiveness of warning messages, channels for distributing messages, and mechanisms for eliciting public response.

Continued support for multi-disciplinary research in disaster risk reduction is needed.

Sound research also needs to be coupled with translating this knowledge into more effective policy and bridging the gaps between environmental, humanitarian, development and governmental actors.

Recognizing the importance of research, scientific and technical information for disaster risk reduction, the UNISDR established a Scientific and Technical Committee (STC) to address policy matters of a scientific and technical nature.

The STC believes that much greater effort is needed to achieve more effective interplay of science, technology and policy in support of disaster risk reduction.

This requires attention in creating better mechanisms for integrating science and technology into policy processes, improving interaction and collaboration between scientific and technical disciplines including, and implementing systematic efforts to build relevant scientific and technical capacities.