UNU-EHS Block Course Successfully Concluded

The 3rd PhD block course within the framework of the joint UNU-EHS/ZEF PhD programme took part from 31 March – 5 April at ZEF in Bonn. This year’s topic dealt with the "Role of Vulnerability in (Disaster) Risk Management". 20 PhD and MSc students with different academic backgrounds such as geography, economics, social sciences, civil engineering, anthropology and natural sciences attended the block course.

The overall goal of the PhD course was to provide a forum for knowledge and research exchange. The main objective of the course was to establish scientific exchange between the PhD researchers and scientific experts. The week long course encompassed 20 presentations held by 16 experts.

The presentations covered topics such as disaster risk management; the diversity of vulnerability, risk; the different tools of risk management; and risk in connection with media. The invited experts provided an overview of the respective topics and highlighted vulnerabilities and associated risks to water-related hazards within the framework of the risk management.

At the end of the six days course the participants were requested to prepare a poster related to one of the presented topics. The students worked in groups and presented four posters dealing with vulnerability, disaster management, (disaster) risk management and hazard.

You can view some of the posters and the PhD agenda here by clicking on the respective link:

• Disaster Management Poster
• Hazard Poster
• Vulnerability Poster
• Role of Vulnerability in Risk Management Poster
• PhD Agenda