This award supports a two-day workshop in Arlington, VA, in 2012 on conducting Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grants that have been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) following major disasters. Scholars in a number of disciplines have long recognized the importance of deploying research teams to the site of a disaster as soon as possible in order to gather perishable or ephemeral data, i.e., data that might be available for only a short period of time. Initial data gathering, scoping out the likely scientific content, proposal development, assembling a team (including collaboration with colleagues in the affected area), and reaching the field quickly are among the challenges in this research. While findings from RAPID studies have enriched knowledge across the phases of disaster, techniques for conducting quick-response research are less shared across the research community. The workshop will provide a forum for information exchange and development of best practices, including new and innovative ones, for this demanding research genre. Projected workshop attendees are RAPID grant recipients, as well as representatives of the principal research centers, agencies, and societies whose work involves disaster-related research. The objectives of the workshop are to explore burgeoning methods for developing initial situation awareness after disaster strikes (such as through growing social media); transforming initial situation awareness into researchable questions for transformative potential; team-building and best practices for deploying researchers (including the prospect of novel approaches); and recommendations to NSF and the hazards community on how to best organize and support RAPIDs following a major disaster for maximum efficiency, alacrity in reaching research sites, and scientific benefits. The outcome of the workshop will be a workshop report. This award is part of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), and the workshop report will be archived on the NEHRP web site (www.nehrp.gov).
NSF has developed the RAPID program as a mechanism for funding small-scale exploratory projects on an expedient basis to enable researchers to get into the field quickly to gather perishable or ephemeral data. More recently, researchers have been supported by NSF to conduct quick-response research for major earthquakes and tsunamis worldwide. Disaster research often requires multidisciplinary knowledge, and it is anticipated that the workshop will be valuable in helping scholars from a variety of disciplines to share best practices for conducting quick-response research and to build cooperative networks.
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Scholars in a number of disciplines have long recognized the importance of deploying research teams to the site of a disaster as soon as possible in order to gather perishable or ephemeral data: that is, data that might be available for only a short period of time. For social scientists, such data may include disaster response decisions and the contexts for making them; requests for and arrival of resources; design and evolving configuration of facilities; and volunteer and emergent non-official activities. For engineers and physical scientists, such data may include measurements of infrastructure damage; evolving supply chain networks; or geophysical observations that may be obscured by subsequent meteorological or geomorphological forces. In addition, observations made in the early stages of disaster have been the foundation for longer-term projects whose premises could be based on sound observational data. Quick-response deployments have enabled researchers to dispel many myths and misconceptions about disaster and therefore to provide the scientific basis—grounded in actual observations—for planning and recovery activities. Nevertheless, in spite of the importance of this research method, there have been few systematic attempts to gather best practices for post-disaster reconnaissance studies or to consider how the National Science Foundation’s RAPID grant mechanism—one of the principal funding sources—could support these demanding research initiatives. This project funded a one-and-a-half day workshop with an interdisciplinary attendance of social scientists and engineers. Participants identified a number of research challenges. These included: Collaboration: Building field teams has been an ongoing challenge, particularly for international disasters where information may be sketchy and the necessary composition of a team difficult to specify, in addition to logistical matters of assembling teams and deploying them. Solutions proposed included virtual fora, use of wikis, nurturing of pre-disaster contacts, and pre-deployment meetings of principal investigators, as well as meetings during deployments either in person or virtually if circumstances permitted. Funding: Participants were concerned that the timeframe of RAPID grants was still long between proposal and award, and urged NSF to appreciate that the smaller amounts of RAPID funding are not adequate for interdisciplinary projects. Research design: Participants objected to the requirement that quick response research must necessarily be 'transformative.' Many asserted the importance of reconnaissance as a way of developing early insight into potentially larger questions and as a way of getting preliminary data for later consideration Ethics: Participants engaged in robust debate on ethical matters, including researchers' responsibilities to the affected population, in terms of providing data, analytical reports, or other products. Participants expressed support for post-event workshops or other meetings in affected communities so that the benefits of research could be disseminated. Other participants cautioned, though, that such workshops could themselves be problematic in places where researchers' views would conflict with local stakeholders’, thus exposing another layer of tension. Some participants suggested that there should be a required ethics statement in proposals, while other participants argued that there was no consensus on what that should consist of. There was a general sense that ethics involved reciprocity, to 'honor the affected community,' though again there was no consensus as to what that would consist of. Collaboration with contacts in the affected area was cited as generally desirable, but the magnitude or intensity of such contacts was not agreed upon. Participants also strongly supported outreach by NSF to Institutional Review Boards on the nature of quick response research, to avoid delays in getting needed human-subjects approval. This workshop was the first formal effort to tackle some of the substantive aspects of quick-response disaster reconnaissance research in the context of one of the prime funding mechanisms, NSF's RAPID program. As such, the workshop was an early step in organizing much of the knowledge that has been held informally as part of the craft skills of disaster scientists, but which has been rarely, if ever, explicitly discussed. The workshop is likely to motivate ongoing consideration of quick-response research and associated challenges of collaboration, research design, ethics, and funding. Most scholars of disaster agree that it is important to collect ephemeral or "perishable" data in the early stages of disaster and to see, as early as practicable, the emergency-managment challenges that arise and how problems are solved. Much of what is known about disaster has been gathered in early reconnaissance trips; a clear and accurate understanding of disaster phenomena and behavioral and organizational features is necessary to the development of sound science and, therefore, to the development of sound policy that can benefit society through reducing hazard and enabling effective disaster response. As the beginning of a continuing dialogue on quick-response research, the workshop is a step toward improving that method and therefore in improving disaster science.
