Preproject, Virtual Organizations and Integrated Operations for Emergency Management

The SAMRISK-I report points out that there is a need for research and improvement of emergency management. Preparedness is based on known risk, past incidents, and thinkable ways an event can evolve. When the prepared responses cannot be carried out due to unexpected situations or combinations of events, the ability to balance adherence to the prepared responses and adaptation to the characteristics of the situation at hand is mandatory for success. Collaboration among the parties involved in the emergen cy management becomes a prerequisite for responding as efficiently as possible to large-scale crises. Challenges for such collaboration may be integration and management of knowledge and information; managing resources and quickly change plans; organizat ion structure and chain of command; awareness and trust. Oil companies have introduced the concept of integrated operations (IO) to foster new forms of collaboration and the ability to respond quickly to changes. Ideas from IO can form the basis for organ isation of an effective emergency management. In the main project we will analyze issues related to organization, culture, and management to design a virtual emergency organization. A virtual organization, based on integrated operations principles, is ex pected to show resilience properties and learning capability when faced by large scale crisis. In the main project we will focus on the present research and experience from different types of crisis management, nationally and internationally. The aim is t o establish a conceptual framework for describing and analyzing emergency organisations. The framework will support new ways of organizing emergency management. The success of the main project depends heavily on a close cooperation with a pool of EMO mem bers as users of a new organization, and an international expert group. These two groups will be established in the pre-project.