Learning from Major

Accidents and Crises

Professor Eric Stern and Edward Deverell

CRISMART

Collaboration with CRISMART CM Europe Program

• CM Europe 2006-2009• ’Before’• ’During’ • ’After’

• Sponsored by MSB (SRV/KBM)• Focus on major accidents/man-made and natural disasters

Key research questions/aims?

• To what extent and how do public and private sector organizations learn from critical events?

• Why do actors, cases and contexts exhibit different patterns of learning and change in response to critical events?

• Contribute to the growing scientific literature on crisis accountability and learning

• Identify candidate ’best practices’ for crisis evaluation and learning

Research design and method

• Multiple methods

• Comparative case studies• Case pairs

• Additional case studies

• Literature and conceptual studies

• Primary empirical foci: Natural disasters, Critical infrastructure failures, Public order and law enforcement

Project-related publications

• Governing After Crisis (Cambridge UP) • 2 published dissertations (Nohrstedt and Hansen), 1 approved

(Deverell)• Dissertation ms (Koreus)• 18 published articles in international journals and volumes• 15 conference papers• 9 Studies and working papers

International and national cooperation

• Cooperation and exchanges with universities in the USA, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Australian and Japan among others.

• Close and ongoing cooperation with SRV, KBM, MSB, Regeringskansliet , EU and local/regional government

• Conference ”Learning from Crises and Major Accidents ” (FHS May 12 2008) 150 particpants (leading scholars, practitioners) televised by SVT

• Extensive educational , training and analytical support activities

Some scientific results

• Problematizing simplistic before, during and after conceptualizations of the relationship between crisis and earning. • Intra vs inter-crisis learning• Issue context and advocacy coalitions

• Intra and inter-organizational learning• Internal/external pressure• Organizational vs policy learning• Framing is key: threat/opportunity• Leadership orientation (conservative vs reformist)• Policy entrepreneurship• Bringing knowledge management in

8 december, 2009

Eric Stern

Towards best practice and research implementation: an example

• British HPA/EU DG SANCO seminar on pandemic evaluation

• CRISMART’s Ten Top Tips for Crisis Evaluators