Introduction: Many cities have felt the impact of natural disasters and leaders have now committed to implement mitigation and adaptation measures to minimize these impacts. The lecture will introduce the Integrated Emergency Management, Government’s approach to assess the risks the UK faces over the next five years and how to develop resilience to those risks with a focus on protecting the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure. It will look at how the Government responds to crises and what role scientific advice plays in these situations. Recent representative events (Flooding in the UK in 2013/14, West Africa Ebola Outbreak 2014 and the Nepal Earthquake 2015) will be discussed from the decision making view.

Speaker’s profile:

Colin Armstrong is the Head of Space Security Policy at UK Space Agency since last July, and before that he was the Head of International Resilience at the Government Office for Science. He was previously Head of Science and Policy Advice for SHED at UKCDS, where he was responsible for the co-ordination of two expert groups – a Risk and Horizon Scanning Expert Group and a Humanitarian Emergency Expert Group – designed to inform Ministerial decisions on emerging international risk and emergencies. With 12 years employment within the UK civil service, he has extensive experience of preparing for and responding to national and international emergencies, especially improving the UK government’s use of science in predicting, preparing for and responding to international natural disasters. He has also provided support to several national expert advisory committees, including the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies during the response to the West Africa Ebola outbreak and the 2099 H1N1 pandemic. He also project managed the development of a national policy document outlining the UK strategy for pandemic influenza preparedness.