Implementing Future Crisis Management Training

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Hedmark and Värmland have common risks with their large rivers and forest-rich landscapes. Good preparedness for natural disasters and other crises in the border region requires cooperation, including in the crisis exercise area. Geographical distances and difficulties in physically gathering actors for exercises make digital solutions an interesting complement. During 2016-2018, the project Preparing for Future Crisis Management (CriseIT) through needs-driven innovation processes has created good conditions for an increased digitalisation of the crisis preparedness area. The project’s tests/practices with users in Swedish and Norwegian municipalities show that the designed tools and methods create opportunities to work more structured, with more practiced and increased learning as a result. In the CriseIT project, researchers from Høgskolen in Innlandet and Karlstad University in close cooperation with companies, counties/county boards, municipalities and voluntary organisations have developed important knowledge, networks and other conditions for innovation development in the area of crisis preparedness. As digitalisation in the field is still at an early stage, further action needs to be taken. A number of new ideas and needs have been discovered in CriseIT. There is also a need to further develop the innovations in the form of crisis exercise methods and digital tools developed in the previous project. In order to exploit new ideas and ensure that the results already available are developed into new (commercial and open) services and are disseminated, the project partners apply for funding for the CriseIT project. The overall goal is for the project to contribute with knowledge and tools that facilitate the continued digitalisation of the crisis exercise area and an increased border regional cooperation on crisis preparedness in the border region Hedmark-Värmland. The project will, inter alia, deliver the following: — A library of crisis exercises with scenarios relevant to the needs of the border region, which municipalities and others can (re-)use and adapt to their specific needs. — Documented resources and support processes for the design, implementation, use and dissemination of, as well as learning from, digital crisis exercises. — Integrated IT tools for learning and digital crisis exercise. — Dissemination of experience and results via website, workshops, conferences, scientific publications, etc. The expected impact is that public actors increase their crisis preparedness through the possibilities for flexible, frequent, varied and needs-adapted crisis exercise/training created by the project. Easy sharing and reuse of exercises also means that public resources can be used more efficiently in the long run. New services and products for crisis exercise/management can be developed by companies that take part of the project’s results (Exercise data, tools, method support, etc.). Finally, an expected long-term effect is that the project consortium becomes an internationally leading player in research, education and competence development around digital crisis practice methods/tools.

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