Background

RESINT is a two-year ERASMUS multilateral project which promotes cooperation and innovation among European higher education institutes, governments, associations and business partners to increase society’s resilience to disasters. The project proposes a collaborative approach for resilience management in overcoming the existing inadequacy of university courses, curricula and syllabuses. RESINT therefore aims at reforming curricula in resilience management with the collaboration of non-academic partners. Accordingly it will contribute towards resilience management teaching and learning by developing open source new methodologies and didactical tools with augmented reality and intelligent computer learning systems. The innovative teaching methods with the cooperation of business partners and associations will enhance the entrepreneurial skills and attitudes of teachers and students and will facilitate students and staff mobility between academia and business.

Project objectives

The main objectives of the projects are:

  • To reformate the curricula and syllabuses of BSc, MSc and PhD programmes on resilience management
  • To promote a dialogue among teachers and researchers in a multidisciplinary approach and create opportunities for knowledge exchange with non-academic organisations through stage, internship of teachers, researchers and students.
  • To develop a consortium among project partners for the management of an open source platform for teaching modules and e-learning methodologies using augmented reality, practice firm methodology (Simulimpresa) and distance learning.
  • To provide high accessibility to share the knowledge needed for an integrated and global system of resilience teaching using WEB and other net tools for connecting higher education (BSc, MSc, PhD) curricula and syllabuses.
  • To enforce the capability of higher education in interacting with the external environment by creating links between research, teaching and business involved in the resilience management after disasters.
  • To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of teaching tools in resilience management with the use of augmented reality, practice management by simulimpresa and the placement of students for internship and stages in external organisations involved in the field.

Methodology

RESINT will achieve these objectives by seven clearly defined work packages which includes effective management of project activities (WP1); development of new curricula and syllabuses in resilience management (WP2); development of the innovative virtual interuniversity network for resilience management educational cooperation (WP3); development of open Source in intelligent systems and augmented reality (WP4); Effective dissemination of project results (WP5); assurance of quality (WP6) and designing and developing mechanisms of ensuring sustainability of OER platforms developed as part of the project (WP7).

The project will bring new tools for networking, teaching and disseminating which will empower students and other target groups with a series of competences in resilience management. The project is developed along three axes:

  • Learning technologies – by promoting the joint development of curricula, courses and materials supported on learning technologies;
  • Collaboration – by promoting the creation of shared knowledge spaces between academia and business companies integrated in the consortium together with other stakeholders in the target industry;
  • Mobility – by promoting networking, joint infrastructure and applications for training, and facilitating mobility of students, staff and trainers between members of the consortium.

The project will also create:

  • New methodologies and tools for the education of the resilience management using augmented reality and Intelligent computer learning systems that will be tested in pilot modules for public managers, students, clients, users, designers, economists, contractors, maintenance engineers, building material manufacturers, suppliers, financing institutions, media, local government, state and state organisations and the population in a wide sense.
  • Interdisciplinary and inter professional teams among project partners that will define the resilience management standards to apply and control the testing and dissemination.

Consortium

The RESINT consortium is composed of 10 partners from four different countries with the lead of the University of Bologna, Italy. List of partner institutions are given below:

  • University of Bologna, Italy
  • University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom
  • Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania
  • SERINAR, Italy
  • SUDGESTAID SCARL, Italy
  • Metaforum S.L., Spain
  • Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
  • Association of Local Authorities in Lithuania, Lithuania
  • JSC – Getweb, Lithuania
  • Udanet, Italy

Further information

For further information, please contact:
Professor Dilanthi Amaratunga, Principal Investigator representing Global Disaster Resilience Ventre (GDRC),
School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Huddersfield
Queensgate, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH, UK
E. d.amaratunga@hud.ac.uk

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This article reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.