Mainstreaming disaster resilience in the construction process: Professional education for a disaster resilient built environment: A report of the CADRE project: Collaborative Action towards Disaster Resilience Education

The past decade has seen a concentration of disaster events causing major social, economic and financial impacts. In order to tackle these increasing losses, the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction 2015–2030, endorsed by 187 UN states in 2015, promotes disaster risk reduction practices that are multi-hazard and multi-sectoral, inclusive and accessible in order to be efficient and effective. The framework also identifies: “a need for the private sector to work more closely with other stakeholders and to create opportunities for collaboration, and for businesses to integrate disaster risk into their management practices”; and, “a need to promote the incorporation of disaster risk knowledge, including disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery and rehabilitation, in formal and professional education and training”.

This report is an account of a study to identify gaps in the knowledge base of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society, and preventing the mainstreaming of disaster resilience within the construction process. This study is part of an EU funded research project that is seeking to develop innovative and timely professional education that will update the knowledge and skills of construction professionals in the industry, and enable them to contribute more effectively to disaster resilience building efforts.

The CADRE research team conducted a detailed study to capture labour market requirements for disaster resilience, and its interface with the construction industry and its professionals. The initial investigation aimed at capturing current and emerging skills for built environment professionals that could contribute to enhancing societal resilience to disasters across the property cycle (strategic definition, preparation and brief, concept design, developed design, technical design, construction, handover and closeout, and in use), the needs of key stakeholders (local and national government, the community, NGOs, INGOs and other international agencies, academia and research organisations, and the private sector) involved in disaster resilience, and management and across five dimensions of resilience (social, economic, institutional, environmental, technological). This analytical framework was developed through an extensive consultation process with project partners. It was refined with the emerging literature findings and with the opinion of stakeholders who were interviewed to capture the labour market demands in construction industry to increase societal resilience to disasters.