C2IMPRESS- 1st General Assembly Meeting and the PPCP Workshop

Manchester, United Kingdom Jun 21, 2023 (Issuewire.com) – The Co-Creative Improved Understanding and Awareness of Multi-Hazard Risks for Disaster Resilient Society (C2IMPRESS) consortium attended their 1st General Assembly meeting on 2-3 May 2023 in Egaleo, Greece.

Collaboratively carried by sixteen partners from different backgrounds, the EU-funded C2IMPRESS project aims at improving the understanding and awareness of natural disasters (mainly floods, heatwaves, forest fires, landslides, and earthquakes) and the multidimensional impacts they generate on a given territory.

The C2IMPRESS project increases public awareness of multi-hazard risks. It aims to move the discussion away from the traditional ‘hazard-centric’ approach to a novel ‘place and people’-centered integrated multi-hazard risk and resilient assessment framework. The project develops several breakthrough innovations, such as a multi-hazard risk intelligence network platform supported by the robust Earth System Dynamic Intelligence (ESDI) and a suite of technologies to empower citizens and society with climate actions.

The highlights from the two days event were the sessions at the 1st General Assembly Meeting and the Public- Private-Civic-Partnership (PPCP) Workshop.

The meeting was inaugurated by a representative from the Municipality of Egaleo. During the 1 st day of the General Assembly Meeting, all the partners of each work package (WP) described the work progress of the project. The second day of the meeting was mainly dedicated to the PPCP approach.

One of the sub-objectives of the C2IMPRESS project is to design a method that promotes the participation of public, private, and civil society stakeholders in the debate around resilience to natural disasters or environmental risks.

C2IMPRESS consortium organised a two-day long PPCP workshop on 27-28 April 2023 in Egaleo, Greece. The workshop was hosted by the Municipality of Egaleo and led by Artelia and NCSR “DEMOKRITOS”. The results and lessons learned from the workshop were presented during the 2 nd day of the meeting, to enable the other pilot site partners to get acquainted with the methodology and its application.

The PPCP approach aims at:
— Bringing together stakeholders with different values and objectives around a common cause (building resilience towards disasters);
— Co-creating and co-designing solutions with simple participative and creative tools and methods, inspired by methods such as Design Thinking and Living Labs;
— Networking all these stakeholders and developing the collective intelligence of these groups on a given territory.

The diverse kind of stakeholders for the public, private, and civic partnership include the municipality, administrations, and public services from the public sector; companies, associations, or organizations which do not depend directly on the State, its administration, and/or local authorities from the private sector; and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs); research/education (including primary, secondary and higher education and research institutes) and the media.

The meeting ended with a note from the Mayor of the Municipality of Egaleo, Mr Ioannis Gkikas. The municipality of Egaleo is the first pilot site to test the innovative solutions of the C2IMPRESS project, on an experimental basis. Based on the results in this city, the tools and solutions will be refined for application in the other pilot sites.