As the warmth of Summer embraces us, we bring you the latest highlights and updates from our community.

Our recent 3rd International Conference on Natural Hazards and Risks in a Changing World: Addressing Compound and Multi-Hazard Risk took place on 12-13 June in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The event featured more than 200 abstract presentations and brought together more than 250 participants creating a vibrant melting pot of ideas, innovations, and collaborations.

The conference included high-level keynote speeches from distinguished experts such as Jenty Kirsh-Wood (UNDRR Alternate), Mariana Madruga de Brito (Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany), Wim Thiery (VU Brussels) and Juha-Pekka Jäpölä (European Commission & University of Antwerp). The conference was a great success, and we look forward to sharing pictures from the event on our website soon.

Earlier this month, we led the Reducing Risks Together: Bridging Disaster Resilience and Climate Adaptation Strategies Policy Workshop on June 5th. This event, organised by MYRIAD-EU and CLIMAAX in the context of the Civil Protection Knowledge Network, provided a platform for discussing and shaping policies that impact our work. If you missed it, you can find more details and insights from the workshop here.

Our General Assembly in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) was a resounding success in May! The project partners reviewed the recent outcomes and planned the next steps. The event, among other outcomes, featured research briefs on the MYRIAD-EU library, which were highly appreciated by all attendees, including the members of the External Advisory Board.

In Spring 2024, stakeholder engagement continued to shape our research in the five MYRIAD-EU Pilots (Canary Islands, Veneto, Danube, Scandinavia, and the North Sea). During a second series of focus groups, local practitioners, policymakers, and sectoral representatives worked closely with Pilot teams to test and refine our methodological approaches for assessing multi-hazard risk and developing disaster risk management pathways. This will pave the way for the finalisation and upscaling of the results in the Pilots during the last year of the project. Meanwhile, our cross-pilot scientific article discussing stakeholder perspectives on challenges in assessing and managing multi-hazard risk is finally published!

The past few months have been busy for the MYRIAD-EU project, and we look forward to upcoming milestones. Stay tuned for more updates, including news about our Summer School in October 2024 and the Final Workshops that will be organised by our Pilots early next year.

Stefania Gottardo, MYRIAD-EU lab manager & Silvia Torresan, MYRIAD-EU WP3 co-lead (Multi-hazard, multi-sector, multi-scale Pilots)

ECR Workshop Highlights: Insights and Aspirations

In conjunction with this year’s project GA meeting, we Early Career Researchers (ECRs) convened to reflect on our journey within the project and strategies for the future.

Feedback from the workshop was overwhelmingly positive, with ECRs appreciating the opportunities for building a strong (and lasting) community, for co-convening/ organising conference sessions, to contribute to governance through board representation and the critical role we played in generating scientific outputs. However, it also highlighted areas for improvement, such as bridging the gap between PhD and non-PhD ECRs and fostering stronger connections across different work packages and collaboration, for example, enhanced data-sharing mechanisms.

Moving forward, we aim to address these challenges and reflect on the special framework of MYRIAD-EU for ECR involvement. Our discussions have kickstarted the process of gathering lessons learned, which will hopefully be taken into consideration for the development of future projects to extend the successful engagement of ECRs in project management and research output.

In this edition, we celebrate the innovative strides taken by our sister projects, all united by a commitment to enhancing disaster resilience and management:

• The PARATUS project released an article titled “Why should we know what a disaster costs?” which tackles the complexities of disaster resilience as they uncover the true costs of disasters. It argues that while quantifying losses is crucial, a comprehensive understanding of the underlying processes and human impacts is essential for effective disaster management and preparedness.
• C2IMPRESS recently held its third public webinar, highlighting the Public-Private-Civil Partnership approach. It discussed how engaging multiple stakeholders encourages the co-creation of effective disaster management solutions. Explore more here.
• AGILE will hold an online workshop on 20 June aiming to help create a reference library of historical HILP disasters and share insights on vulnerabilities. You can register for the workshop here and stay updated on AGILE’s progress via their website, LinkedIn, and X accounts