Caino summer school 2022 was 'An intensive, but above all a very inspiring week.'

Lock downs overcrowded hospitals, overworked hospital staff, waiting lists, closing stores, bankruptcies. Just a few effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. How can the world best prepare for the next crisis?

From 20th till the 24th of June the first edition of the ‘Cascading Disasters, Institutions and Organizations (CAINO)’ summer school was held. It was organized by Dr. Clara Egger and Dr. Francesca Giardini. Eleven students from seven different countries participated in the CAINO summer school. The students had a wide variety of backgrounds; master or PhD students, practitioners and researchers.

Focus

The CAINO summer school focused on question such as:

• How can we build disaster-proof societies for the next generations?
• How do political institutions shape resilience to the cascading effects of disasters?
• What are the challenges that organizational networks face when coordinating during multiple disasters?

These are only a few of the questions haunting social scientists and disaster management scholars and practitioners in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite decades of research and recommendations on disaster management strategies, this ongoing disaster has not only reflected the vulnerabilities of societies to cascading disasters but it has highlighted the need to better conceptualize the role that political systems and inter-organizational emergency management networks play in shaping resilience to such disasters.

Different interesting activities

CAINO intended to shed new light on such questions by providing advanced knowledge on the political dimensions of cascading disasters and on the role of emergency management networks. The five days consisted of different interesting activities. These included lectures by researchers from the UG itself, as well as staff from international organizations such as the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the Red Cross.

On Tuesday an open panel was held. The panel brought together policy makers from UN agencies, municipalities and NGOs to reflect on good practices and lessons learned from current initiatives aimed at building bottom-up resilience. It was a very interesting and lively panel, with time almost running out to answer all the interesting questions from the students. The lively interaction between students and the panel speakers was much appreciated by both sides. In addition to the lectures and panel, there were also hands on sessions organized where students could work on their group assignment and ask questions.

Final session

In one week the students were trained in an inter- and transdisciplinary learning environment combining theory, methods and practice into group projects. Equipped with the newly acquired knowledge, the students presented their group project in a final session on Friday. It was an intensive, but above all a very inspiring week.