A Note of Warning Blog 1: An Introduction

By Carina Fearnley, Ilan Kelman & Claudia Fernandez de Cordoba Farini

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We are happy to inaugurate the UCL Warning Research Centre Blog Page on today’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. Per the United Nations, this year’s call to action is on Target G of the Sendai Framework that is to “substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030.”

At the core of the UCL Warning Research Centre is the goal to improve the effectiveness, access, and integration of warning systems across different communities, scales, disciplines and hazards. To achieve that, the UCL Warning Research Centre has pledged to become a centre for academic excellence and a hub for collaboration both within UCL, as well as with universities globally, businesses, government, non-governmental, and intergovernmental organisations.

This blog page will help to facilitate engagement with the global community of experts studying, researching, working with, or using warning and alert systems. It will make information and insights publicly accessible in the form of either lived experiences, short research analyses, policy guidance, applications and collaborative work.

You can already find a range of blogs and podcasts readily accessible on for example:

• Why some warnings are not being heard or acted on
• The first mile of warning systems: who’s sharing what with whom?
• Designing infectious diseases warnings that work
• Pakistan’s floods are a disaster – but they didn’t have to be
• Lessons From Volcano Warnings In Predicting The Next Pandemic

And we hope to share many more over the coming months and years.