WBS Professor Duncan Shaw has secured funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for the research project “Considering the involvement of convergent volunteers during major floods”. The project started in October 2013 and will continue until the end of October 2014.

Duncan explained, “This project will identify and explore the dimensions that emergency planners should consider when deciding whether or not to embed convergent volunteers into their official response. At present there is no official guidance on the involvement of convergent volunteers during emergencies. This research will therefore engage with the relevant key stakeholders from the public and voluntary sectors to identify and validate potential dimensions that may inform national policy on volunteer involvement in the response to major flood events.”

The first stage of the research will scope the operational challenges associated with the involvement of volunteers in emergency response. The second stage will identify the potential dimensions that planners may need to consider when involving volunteers through a review of the policy context and academic/practitioner literature bases as well as a series of interviews with key stakeholder involved in the management and coordination of both organised and convergent volunteers.

Further information about the project can be found by clicking on the link Convergent volunteer project