Spreading the MYRIAD-EU message
The MYRIAD-EU project prides itself on its active members who always try to share the message of the project through their channels. These channels and networks include social media, conference presentations, podcasts, videos and last but not least word of mouth.
Last month Marleen de Ruiter, a member of the MYRIAD community took part in a podcast called Climate Quandaries with Colin Raymond, Climate Scientist at the University of California and at NASA’s JPL lab. The podcast is geared towards a scientific audience and focuses on one-on-one conversations with climate scientists on the philosophical questions raised by climate change. The conversation touched on many interesting topics related to ChatGPT, differences in risk perception and the ethics of air travel.
During the episode, Marleen highlighted the importance of interactions with local stakeholders for the MYRIAD-EU project. As MYRIAD-EU aims to develop tools and methods to enable stakeholders to adopt new approaches to disaster risk management, a collaboration with stakeholders identifying their needs is crucial in the design of these tools and methods. Although local stakeholder involvement poses initial challenges in terms of varied understanding of terminology and language, it is an integral part of the pilot programmes and the overall understanding and success of the MYRIAD-EU project.
For example, in the insurance industry, there is a different understanding of the concept of risk compared to the definition provided by the UNDRR and used in MYRIAD, and natural hazards are commonly referred to as ‘perils”. One of the main goals of MYRIAD’s Disaster Risk Gateway wiki is to try to contribute to creating a shared understanding of risk, however it is also possible for stakeholders to opt to continue to using terminology more familiar to them. In January, several MYRIAD members attended a science-policy-practice workshop organised by the DAMOCLES (Understanding and Modelling Compound Climate and Weather Extremes) European COST Action in Glasgow. This workshop will be followed up by a workshop paper synthesising the lessons learned from these science-policy-practice stakeholder interactions.
Stakeholder inclusion and engagement are cornerstones of the MYRIAD-EU project, they provide the team with valuable information that determines the scope of the project and the actions to be taken. Only through the pilot programmes and the variety of sectors represented can a more comprehensive overview of the risk related challenges that are at play in each of the locations be developed.