Disaster Roundtable

National Academy Of Sciences, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This grant provides funding to support the mission of the Disasters Roundtable, which is to facilitate and enhance communication and the exchange of ideas among scientists, practitioners, and policy makers in order to identify emerging issues related to natural, technological, and other types of disasters. To accomplish this objective, the Roundtable convenes public workshops which provide a forum for discussion on issues related to the understanding and mitigation of disasters. In the post-9-11, post-Hurricane Katrina era, the roles and responsibilities related to research, practice, and capacity of disaster and emergency management continually change. With this evolution comes an increasing trend of distributing roles and information across separate sectors, offices, and disciplines - or silos - that have much to contribute to the collective understanding of and solutions to emerging disaster-related issues and problems. Means to facilitate the exchange, transfer, and application of information among these silos are needed to capture this collective understanding and identify common or shared solutions to meet changing or competing demands. The Disasters Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences facilitates this type of exchange: it provides a neutral forum into which representatives from the various silos are invited to hear and be heard by each other to share perspectives, increase understanding, or confirm common interests to work towards solutions disaster-related issues. In doing so, the Disasters Roundtable occupies a unique and important niche in harnessing and applying the most current thinking among the research, practitioner, and management arms of the disasters community. The Disasters Roundtable membership is comprised of recognized experts across the research, practice, public, and private sectors, and about half of the members provide the financial support for the Roundtable as ex-officio members. The Disasters Roundtable pools the individual contributions of its ex-officio members in a way that leverages each investment to achieve the greater, common goals of catalyzing change in the disasters research and practitioner communities and informing policy through advancements in science, technology and research. It uses the unparalleled convening power of the National Academies - the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine - to summon experts from the public and private sectors, academia, and non-governmental organizations to illuminate emerging and advance existing issue and use advances in science, technology, and policy to mitigate the effects of disasters domestically and abroad. The Disasters Roundtable and workshop formats entail carefully structured presentations, small break-out and working groups, and other types of discussions that illuminate disciplinary areas of overlap, integration, and opportunity to mitigate the negative effects of disasters through strengthening linkages among disasters-related policy, science, technology, and research. The Disasters Roundtable was established in 2000 and has held more than 30 workshops, meetings, and activities on timely and important disasters-related issues during its tenure.