Disaster and Development Network (DDN)
Northumbria University
Ellison Building B201, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
United Kingdom NE1 8ST
www.northumbria.ac.uk/ddn
OutlineThe D isaster and D evelopment N etwork (DDN) was established following t he Northumbria
University l aunch in 200 0 of t he world’s f irst Postgraduate P rogramme i n D isaster M anagement
and S ustainable D evelopment. The DDN applies integrated r esearch and learning to address
hazards, di sasters and c omplex emergencies from a dev elopmental perspective. T he Network
research responds to themes of disaster reduction, sustainable development and resiliencebuilding oriented to addressing human security and wellbeing of individuals, groups and institutionsin c risis. The l aunch o f the postgraduate studies, for w hich t here are active alumnus of 2 0+completed PhDs and 250 Masters, was accompanied first by expansion of research and external
engagement activities of the Disaster and D evelopment C entre (DDC) launched 2004, renamed
the D DN i n 2013 . Much o f this c ommunity are leaders in professional programmes of pr actice,research and policy making around the world from international, local and academic organisations
including ot her UK universities as it expanded. The Northumbria group i s also host to t he world
renowned Gender and Disaster Network (GDN) and has a hi story of spin off enterprises focussed
on disaster and development related initiatives.
The c urrent D DN ongoing exploration of this interdisciplinary f ield helps t o identify disaster an ddevelopment solutions grounded in everyday life concerns or extreme conditions. Much of this isassociated with new understanding of the complex relationship between the underlying and more
immediate influences on instability, impoverishment and risk. The early focus remains pervasive,with expanded awareness c ross-sectorally. This is driven by q uestions as t o w hether s ufficiently
smart s olutions a re meeting t he dem ands o f human s urvivability. T o this end the D DN aims t orespond to disaster and development demands through innovative approaches. This is necessary
since increased knowledge about t he nat ure a nd c ontext o f global an d l ocal t hreats exposes
persistent gaps between opportunities and consequent actions of science and technology, political
will and behav iour c hange for disaster risk reduction. A representation o f t he r esearch, learningand c ognition flow unde rpinning m uch o f this work is represented i n Fi gure 1 . The image to t heright is well-known from earlier years of disaster and development studies at Northumbria.

Figure 1: Challenge of learning and action in a disaster and development nexus

The D DN i s l ocated w ithin a rapidly strengthening i nstitutional env ironment. The U niversity o fNorthumbria at N ewcastle is the l argest research and teaching uni versity i n the N orth E ast ofEngland, w ith ov er 38, 000 s tudents enrolled a t undergraduate and pos t-graduate l evel i ncluding
over 500 PhD students. The University has been recognised by Times Higher Education as having
the biggest rise in research power of any university in a national assessment of research quality in
UK universities. The results of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) demonstrate that
Northumbria Un iversity has m ade a m ajor s tep f orward in r esearch, reporting t he largest rise inresearch rated as world-leading and internationally excellent by the REF. The University has nearly
tripled i ts s hare of research r ated i n these c ategories, r epresenting an addition t o its previously
achieved t arget o f best N ew U niversity, w hich i t ac hieved four t imes in a ll and three t imes inconsecutive years. Its recent research achievements are thought to mark a m ajor step-change forNorthumbria, positioning the University decisively as one of the fastest rising institutions in the UK
higher ed ucation s ector, whilst creating a b road and r obust pl atform for t he nex t phas e o f its
research programmes.
Disaster, risk and dev elopment r elated research i s p redominantly c oordinated from w ithin t he
Faculty o f E ngineering and E nvironment from the D epartment of Geography being also well
networked across the wider institution including planning, design, social sciences and heal th. The
DDN is m ade up o f s taff at N orthumbria U niversity t ogether w ith af filiated s taff from i nstitutions
internationally. The immediate Faculty has ov er 250 ac ademics, 8 ,000 s tudents and ov er 200
PhDs. It has r esearch a nd i nnovation ex perience ac ross a nu mber o f r esearch groups i n many
aspects of engineering, materials science, physics, maths, computing and physical and humangeography, i ncluding t he D isaster and D evelopment N etwork (DDN) l ed by P rofessor C ollins.
Northumbria University has significant experience of managing and participating in larger projects
such as for example those of the EU, having been successful and/or involved in 11 FP 6 projects,
from a total of 31 bids submitted; a 35% success rate. Northumbria is also involved as partner orcoordinator in 15 FP7 projects from 2009-2013.
Research Achievements and Challenges
The DDN has carried out research and development activity in 25 countries. It is also an accreditedorganisation for t he p rocess o f the U nited N ations I nternational Strategy on Dis aster Ris kReduction and related Global Platforms leading to launch in 2005 and ongoing post 2015. There is
wide ranging staff achievement in relation to research and contract research grants. An example isthe c ase o f Professor Co llins who has secured high profile gr ants related t o t he disaster r isk
reduction and dev elopment ar ea; that includes ‘The M eaning o f H ealth S ecurity for Dis aster
Resilience i n B angladesh’, funded by t he U K R esearch C ouncil’s E SRC ( £238,000); theDepartment For I nternational D evelopment ( DFID) funded Infectious D isease R isk M anagement(IDRM) pr oject ( £360,000) and ‘ Zambezi V alley A dvocacy P roject’ ( £460,000), s ix B ritish
Council/DFID pr ojects r elated t o peopl e c entric di saster reduction (£475,000) am ongst ot hers.
Under the Leadership of Professor Collins, the Disaster and Development Network (DDN) has also
lead a seminar series on Disaster Education funded by the ESRC involving collaboration with theemergency s ervices an d ac ademia o f Scotland, N orthern Ireland, Wales and E ngland. It h as
carried out ministerial level policy debates on r isk and r esilience building in South Asia, East Asia,
Southern A frica an d E urope bas ed on i ts r esearch and publ ic en gagement. Since 2006 it hasorganised the annual Dealing with Disasters conference series attended by high levels of disasterrisk reduction r epresentations globally s uch as U nited N ations S pecial R epresentatives to t he
Secretary General.
DDN research interests include:• Disaster R esilience a nd H uman Security - including; C ommunity B ased D isaster Reduction,
Disaster Education and Communication, Sustainable Livelihoods, Natural Resources Management,Rights Based and Conflict Resolution Approaches.

• Health C entred D isaster R isk R eduction - including; Health Security, Infectious Disease Risk
Management, and Integrated Food and Livelihood Security.
• Wellbeing in Disaster and Development - including; Community Mental Health and Wellbeing,Social Care in Disaster and Development, Gender and Disaster, Migration and Displacement.
• Disaster Response and Adaptation - including; I ntegrated E mergency Management, E nergy
Security, Relief and Restoration and Climate Change Adaptation.
These themes en gage c ross c utting i ssues s uch as env ironmental s ustainability, unev endevelopment, poverty r eduction, r ights based appr oaches, c ivil s ociety, liv ing w ith u ncertainty,
adaption to global change, emergency and humanitarian response. The DDN has conducted overthirty surveys relating to critical survivability and wellbeing using people centred approaches.
DDN c arries out contract r esearch i n i nternational dev elopment or di saster r eduction forInternational O rganisations (IOs), Governments ( GOs), and N on-Governmental O rganisations(NGOs) including DFID, UK Government Office for Science, Trocaire, World Bank, USAID, FAO,IFAD, UNI CEF, UNDP , UNHCR, Governments of M ozambique, E ast Timor, Ghana and A ngola,Stockholm E nvironment I nstitute, C are, World Vision, S ave t he C hildren, A gema, A gha K han,Water A id, GTZ, M ediae Trust, I FRC, P ractical A ction, Wageningen I nternational, Fam ily H ealthInternational, ChildFund International, ELRHA, HIF, Norwegian Research Council, AXA, EuropeAidand various EU funding bodies.
The DDN also provides the elected Chair for the Enhanced Learning and Research for
Humanitarian A ssistance ( ELRHA) s upported b y U K G overnment, Welcome Trust and multiple
humanitarian a gencies and B oard M ember for I ntegrated D isaster R isk M anagement S ociety(IDRiM) hosted by Kyoto University.
Amongst various editorships in this field, DDN currently provides an Editor in Chief to Journal ofGeography and N atural D isasters (OMICS) an d E ditorial B oard r oles for Disasters (Blackwell),International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (Elsevier), the Journal of the Society for Integrated
Disaster Risk Management and the Journal of Health Population and Nutrition.
Examples of r esearch ac hievements t hat inform t he wider sector and contribute to achieving
Disaster Risk Reduction goals either individually or in a cross-cutting way include the following:•DDN research has focussed on how people in marginalised locations can control ecologicaland s ocio-economic risks. T he risks frequently thought t o be a r esult of c limate c hange,
resurgent pa thogens or phy sical i nstability has also been found t o be exacerbated byintersecting socio-economic vulnerability and local systems of governance. DDN research
funded by DFID, ESRC, and NERC elaborated, in practical terms, the paradigm of disasterrisk reduction t hrough e nhanced c ommunity r esilience. This is however now being driven
by the need to f ind solutions that can move well beyond the current impasse surrounding
the concept of resilience, itself inadequate to meet the demands of future generations.

•Examples also show how community self-organisation, sense of security and healthattributes c an de fine resilience t o di saster. Research s upported by D FID, WHO, U NICEF
and other partners showed how risks to health can be reduced by improving local
management, allowing communities to play a major role in identifying and managing risk.
Whilst risk perception is usually guided by visible assessments, individual cognition andlocal context, community involvement in local governance has proven to facilitate collective
control and r esponsibility. When s uccessful this c ontributes a s tep c hange t o the w ay i nwhich di saster c an be reduced though en gaging peopl e i n dev elopment. H owever, nopanacea can b e derived f rom t his f inding. I nstead the demand is often f or even m ore
grounded approaches including development of corporate and social responsibilities.

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Further projects, i ncluding those s upported by DFID and t he B ritish C ouncil, hav e s hownthat whilst it is difficult to overcome natural environmental influences it is possible to reducethe ‘ anthropogenic l andscape’ e ffect o f hum an activities t hat c ontribute t o env ironmental
disasters and other risks. DDN research demonstrates the viability of community based risk
reduction approaches and roles of varied institutions in disaster prevention. Projects havefocussed on primary resources such as water supply, the importance of children in disasterrisk reduction and rights based approaches using participatory action research, such as forexample in Southern Africa where increasing numbers of children are orphaned by HIV andAIDS. O ther a ctivities hav e i nvolved m ore q uantitative m ethods. Whilst t his s trand ofdevelopment from e mpirically bas ed r esearch significantly c ontributed, more in dep th
analyses is recognising the need to rebalance with input from biological and physicalsciences. For example, one new project is looking at ‘infectious disease risk in UK trains’requiring microbiological input alongside socio-behavioural research. There are also
aspects of hazards r esearch carried out near by t hrough a group o f l eading physicalgeographers.

Other D DN ac tivities i nclude l inks w ith em ergency s ervices and as sociation w ith nat ional andinternational bodies, or in hosting bi-lateral links such as for example the Japan-UK Disaster Risk
Reduction Study P rogramme, l inks w ith Southern A frican and South Asian academic i nstitutions
amongst others.

References:
Some indicative references for this document (indicative of one segment of DDN activity)• Collins, A.E. (2015) ‘Beyond experiential learning in disaster and development communication’in: Egner, H., Schorch, M. and Voss, M. (Eds.) Learning and Calamities: Practices,Interpretations, Patterns, London: Routledge, pp.56-76.
• Collins, A.E., Jones, S., Manyena, B. and Jayawickrama, J. (eds.)(2014) Hazards, Risks andDisasters in Society, New York: Elsevier. (23 chapters).
• Collins, A.E. (2013) ‘Applications of disaster risk reduction to migration influenced byenvironmental change’, Journal of Environmental Science and Policy, 27:S1, pp. S112-S125.
• Mavhura, E., Manyena, B., Collins, A.E. and Manatsa, D. (2013) ‘Indigenous knowledge,
coping strategies and resilience to floods in Muzarabani, Zimbabwe’, International Journal ofDisaster Risk Reduction, 5, pp.38-48.
• Jones, S., Aryal, K. and Collins, A.E. (2013) ‘Local-level Governance of Risk and Resilience inNepal’, Disasters, 37:3, pp.442-67.
• Collins, A.E. (2011) ‘Representations of disaster and development in the Sendai emergency’ inthe earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear meltdown in Japan: responses from thecommunicating disaster research group, ZiF-Mitteilungen 2, pp.12-14.
• Alam, E. and Collins, A.E. (2010) ‘Cyclone disaster vulnerability and r esponse experiences incoastal Bangladesh’, Disasters, 34:4, pp.931-53.
• Williams, L., Collins, A.E., Bauaze, A. and Edgeworth, R. (2010) ‘The role of risk perception in
reducing cholera vulnerability’, Risk Management: an International Journal, 12, pp.163-84.
• Ray-Bennett, N., Collins, A.E., Bhuiya, A., Edgeworth, R., Nahar, P and Alamgir, F. (2010)‘Exploring the meaning of health security for disaster resilience through people's perspectives
in Bangladesh’, Health and Place, 16: pp.581-9.
• Collins, A.E. (2009) ‘The people centred approach to early warning systems and the ‘Last Mile’,in International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Focus on
Early Warning, Early Action, World Disaster Report, Chapter 2, pp. 39-68.
• Collins, A.E. (2009) Disaster and Development, Routledge Perspectives in Development
Series, London
Further information can be obtained from:
Professor Andrew Collins
Disaster and Development Network (DDN) / Department of Geography
Faculty of Engineering and Environment
201b Ellison BuildingNorthumbria University
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
United Kingdom
NE18ST
andrew.collins@northumbria.ac.uk