Research Project on Advancing skill creation to enhance transformation-capacity building in the field of higher education
What is this project on?
With growing population and infrastructures, the world’s exposure to hazard – to both natural and manmade origin – is increasing. According to EM-DAT (2013) Asia had experienced the most number of disasters during the last three decades. Advancing Skill Creation to Enhance Transformation (ASCENT) has conceptualize this project in the aim of ensuring the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of the targeted partner countries (region 6) to build research and innovative capacities to tackle the challenges associated with developing societal resilience to disasters. This will be done through participation in structured set of unique research capacity development activities (training and workshops) that will progressively build the capacity of researchers to undertake and communicate advanced, world-class and innovative, multi- and inter disciplinary, high quality and policy/practice relevant research to increase societal resilience to disasters.
Partners in Sri Lanka
♦ University of Hudersfield, UK
♦ University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
♦ University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
♦ University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka
Funding
Erasmus+ Capacity Building in the field of Higher Education
Aims and objectives of the project
To address R&I capacity strengthening for the development of societal resilience to disasters – supporting training, skills, leadership development, international collaboration and university-industry partnerships.
ASCENT will achieve this by;
♦ Identifying research and innovative capacity needs across partner country HEIs to tackle the development of societal resilience to disasters
♦ Developing research infrastructure to support implementation of the project and provide sustainable capacity development within the partner HEIs
♦ Preparing researchers in the identified Asian countries to undertake advanced, world-class and innovative, multi- and inter-disciplinary research that will contribute to increased societal resilience to disasters
♦ Increasing international cooperation by partners HEIs on research programmes that tackle ways to increase societal resilience to disasters
♦ Exploring, promoting and initiating opportunities for fruitful university/ industry partnerships to increase societal resilience to disasters
♦ Publicizing the project progress, successes and outcomes as far as possible, and raising awareness across the field of HE about capacity building for disaster resilience research
What SPARC has done so far…
The SPARC launched a community based study to monitor the recovery process following Tsunami in late 2005. This study was conducted in 8 communities from the Southern and Eastern provinces. From the findings of the study a policy oriented seminar was held in early 2007 and the proceedings were published in a volume titled Tsunami Recovery in Sri Lanka: Retrospect and Prospect.
To commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Indian Oceanic Tsunami a one day workshop was organized by the SPARC in collaboration with the Global Disaster Resilience Centre at the University of Huddersfield, UK and Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa on 5 December 2014. Abstracts of the papers presented at the workshop were published in 2015.
Focusing on the risk management aspect of disasters another workshop on “Ensuring Accountability in Disaster Risk Management and Reconstruction” was organized by the SPARC in collaboration with the Global Disaster Resilience Centre at the University of Huddersfield, UK and the University of Essex, UK on 8 December 2015.
Download: Press Release 14 March 2016