Why our organization and CascEff

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden (previously SP Technical Research institute of Sweden)
RISE is the coordinator of the CascEff project. The expertise of the department of fire research covers all aspects of fire safety and the CascEff project is a unique and exciting opportunity to bring many of our competences together to contribute to the development of a tool which can help to contribute to reducing the impact of large scale incidents throughout Europe.

Lund University
Lund University has a long tradition of pursuing research related to crisis management and critical infrastructure protection. In this context, increased understanding of the way cascading effects from crisis situations may impact on our society is paramount. The CascEff project represents a unique opportunity to develop new approaches to study the propagation of crises between societal sectors and to contribute to the generation of new knowledge in this important research area. In addition, we have expertise in several related areas, such as emergency response tactics and evacuation modelling, which provide important input to the Project.

Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), Sweden
MSB will focus on development of methodology for incident management. This reflects very well MSB:s national assignment and expertise.

Ghent University
In the context of the CascEff project, Ghent University will focus on modeling physical phenomena in tools, useful in the event of cascading effects.

INERIS
Regarding CascEff, INERIS is participating to the development of an Incident Evolution Tool to be able to forecast domino-effects during incident. INERIS is also assessing the added-value of getting real-time ground stability monitoring tools with specific alert systems to public stakeholders involved in crisis management.

Service Public Federal Interieur (KCCE), Belgium
The Crisis Center is part of the Federal Public Service Interior. KCCE will contribute with input on some aspects for the development of an IET for cascading effects in accordance to its restricted implication. The network and experience of KCCE will be used within different parts of the Project.

Safety Centre Europe (SCE), Belgium
SCE will both share its experience in international crisis management (WP1) as well as define the Incident Evolution Tool architecture and implement the methodology into NoKeos scenario’s (WP4) and test this in a use case in the Port of Antwerp (WP5)

University of Lorraine, France
University of Lorraine has developed a tool for crisis management simulation for students and pros. Named iCrisis(TM), the tool is still under development and is going to be used, in the frame of CascEff project, for testing the usefulness of the IET to be developed. More over, the CascEff project is a frame for developing new functions in iCrisis as well as an observation and debriefing methodology for simulation feedbacks to trainees and to the crisis management community.

University of Sheffield, England
The Information School at the University of Sheffield is recognised nationally and internationally for its world-class research, excellence in teaching, and the achievements of its graduates. It is the leader in its field in the UK, consistently ranked number one in every national Research Assessment Exercise and achieving top-ranking positions for research environment and research impact in the Research Excellence Framework 2014. It is a member of the international iSchools organisation, a group of leading cognate schools established to promote the role of the information field in shaping the future of the global information society.

NFRS
Northamptonshire County Council Fire and Rescue Service (NFRS) is a county service providing prevention, protection and intervention capabilities to a population of 700,000 residents. Northamptonshire has a wide range of risks including a large major road and rail network, commercial and industrial sites. The county is the ancestral home the Princess Diana and where she was buried in 1997. Sulgrave in Northamptonshire is the birthplace of George Washington, the first president of the USA. NFRS has 22 fire stations and 550 operational staff located throughout the county. Each station has a first response fire appliance and a variety of other capabilities such as water rescue, large animal rescue, high reach appliances and command and control vehicles. NFRS contributes to National Resilience by housing and operating high volume pumps used for wide range flooding and an mass decontamination unit used for CBRN events. CascEff offers NFRS the opportunity of influencing Europe wide developments to improved incident management methodologies by working collaboratively with a diverse range of emergency preparedness, response and recovery partners.

XVR Simulation
XVR has joined the CascEff project to facilitate the tests and exercises with the Incident Evolution Tool developed in the CascEff-project. E-Semble’s simulation platform XVR will be used by the XVR Centres of Excellence of the Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service in the UK, MSB training centre in Revinge, Sweden and possibly by Campus Vesta in Antwerp, Belgium. By using virtual reality incident simulation, instead of life outdoor staged scenarios, the flexibility in the type of crisis scenarios to test and exercise increases and the cost to execute them drop significantly.

Moreover, by participating in the CascEff project, knowledge about cascading effects, ways to halt them and more effective incident and crisis management methodologies will become available to XVR developers and the worldwide XVR User Community. By running the tests and exercises, the XVR Community will also gain experience in running (large scale) virtual exercises in which operational tools – like the CascEff IET – and simulation tools are used together to create a virtual training that is experienced by participants as realistic as possible and acquiring valuable insight in how to use innovative crisis management tools best under stressful circumstances.

XVR staff will further participate in the software design of the IET and creating assets within XVR to run the tests and exercises. These developments will become available to the entire XVR User Community as a result of the CascEff project.

Campus Vesta
As a multidisciplinary training facility, Campus Vesta can rely on a broad network of academic and field specialists covering the whole disaster management cycle: proaction, prevention, preparedness and response. Disaster management training, exercises and research belong to Campus Vesta’s core business. The CascEff project offers the opportunity to share knowledge and join efforts with other European partners in developing an Incident Evolution Tool for improved disaster management.