RESILENS has an ambitious but achievable and practically applied research agenda that will result in significant advancements in the resilience of CI. The project has a wide range of technical objectives, as well as striving to deliver objectives for positive advancements in societal, economic, environmental and organisational resilience.

From a technical perspective, the project objectives are as follows:

  • The operationalisation of crisis and disaster resilience concepts for Critical Infrastructure (CI). This will involve the applied integration of risk management approaches and resilience management by providing a solution that will support the more efficient uptake of risk assessments by Member States and Associated Countries in combination with resilience management approaches.
  • The strengthening of Critical Infrastructure (CI) for water, energy, transport, housing/shelter, food, communications, finance and health which provide essential services and underpin socio-economic activity.
  • More effective and coherent crises and disaster resilience management, including improved trainings for rescuers and population engagement.
  • The fusion of concepts from multiple traditions including, engineering infrastructure, psychology, ecosystem stability, the behavioural sciences and dis­aster risk reduction to remove ambiguities and ensure coherent and agreed approaches across stakeholder disciplines.
  • Build on and advance the findings of the European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection (EPCIP), the EU demonstration project, DRIVER (DRiving InnoVation in crisis management for European Resilience), and relevant Seventh Framework Programme

 

These overarching objectives will guide the RESILENS project, which will result in: 

The development of a RESILENS Decision Support Platform (RES-DSP) to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 or above. RES-DSP will encompass as its major component a European Resilience Management Guideline (ERMG) which will be based on the principles of risk management and vulnerability reduction, thereby bridging the link between these two technically and conceptually interdependent processes. Resilience management tools including a Resilience Management Matrix and Audit Toolkit and substitution methods, and an E-Learning Hub will form part of the ERMG and will also be available as stand-alone applications on the RES-DSP.  

 

 Other technical objectives that will support the development and application of the RESILENS RES-DSP are:

  • Operationalisation of the ERGM and Resilience Management tools components of the RES-DSP to prove its applicability, through pilot demonstrations which will allow multiple simulated testing events and will address the entire life-cycle of a crisis/disaster involving a man-made threat or natural disaster.
  • Develop an integrated multi-agency CONcept of OPerationS framework (CONOPS) focusing on the roles of the various stakeholders, their interactions, critical dependencies, use of resources and knowledge requirements. This will include the roles and activities of emergency responders, utilities providers, infrastructure managers and public administration as well as examining the role of the citizen in terms of achieving and maintaining resilience.
  • Through the ERMG, provide a solid foundation on which future regulatory standards for application across all CI sectors may be formulated.

In achieving its technical objectives, the RESILENS project will contribute to safer, more secure and resilient European societies. In this regard, the overarching societal, economic, environmental and organisational objectives are to:

  • Increase societal resilience through the maintenance of CI functionality during a shock or stress event and contribute to the formulation and adoption of more resilient societal structures which can identify and respond to shocks and stresses.
  • Increase the ability of European economic and institutional systems to cope and respond in the event of a disaster, attack or other security challenge.
  • Promote awareness of the importance of resilient CI in safeguarding economies, society and the environment.
  • Educate CI stakeholders including political representatives, CI providers, civil protection units, first responders and other users in adopting organisational structures that will support more integrated coordination in planning, responding and recovering from disaster and crises events.
  • Support political stakeholders, CI providers, civil protection units, first responders and other users in the realisation that the citizen is as an active rather than a passive participant in emergency/crisis response and the maintenance of community and societal resilience.
  • Enhance the safety of European citizens and support more effective community response and recovery in preparing for, responding to and recovering from crises and disasters. This can be achieved through the formulation of more effective current communication procedures.