Drs. Enrico Quarantelli and Joanne Nigg, University of Delaware, and Academician Konstantin Popov, Institute for System Studies, Moscow will cooperate in a seminar on social science research on mitigation and recovery from disasters and large Scale Hazards in Moscow in June 1992. Ten American scientists will travel to Moscow to join the ten Russian scientists in discussing, comparing and evaluating existing knowledge and research findings as developed by both groups with the idea of developing a research agenda for mutually beneficial future study collaboration. The meeting will have the immediate effect of strengthening the disaster research tradition within the two countries which are already among the leaders in the area. Indirectly, it should accelerate the development of an international network of disaster researchers which has started to come into being in the last decade. American participants drawn from nine universities around the country will represent six different disciplines; the Soviet participants are from different research divisions in different parts of the country. Recent changes in the political climate allow a freer exchange of information about research results and the initiation of collaborative research projects which could contribute significantly to the development of social science knowledge about disasters and its application to the practical planning for and managing of hazardous occasions. This project fulfills the program objective of advancing scientific knowledge by enabling leading researchers in the United States and Russia to combine complementary efforts and capabilities in areas of strong mutual interest and competence in the field of basic scientific research on the basis of equality, reciprocity, and mutuality of benefit.
