From crisis management to humanitarian technology — A European perspective

The European Union (EU) Member States and the European Commission (EC) are investing substantial funds in research and development (R&D) on technologies and innovative solutions for European and international disaster management, risk reduction as well as general crisis preparedness and response. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has intensively been working in these R&D programs for many years and has developed its own research agenda in support of crisis and disaster management. In recent years, R&D activities within DLR are beginning to increasingly address also technological and operational needs of humanitarian relief actors who are providing assistance to people most in need. In this paper we report how major EC funded R&D programs and projects, including the current DRIVER project, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) as well as DLR cooperation activities with the World Food Program (WFP), SOS Children's Villages International, the German Agency for Technical Relief (THW), the Red Cross and others are increasingly leading to a “humanitarian technology” support. With these activities DLR is aiming to help bridging the operational gap between laboratory scale and humanitarian field operations.