The National Territorial Planning Agency in Albania since 2016 has been a partner in BRIGAID project(Bridging the Gap for Innovations in Disaster Resilience), part of the Horizon 2020 program of the European Commission, with lead partner Technische Universiteit Delft. The main focus of BRIGAID is innovation clustered in 3 main components of climate change, such as floods, droughts and extreme weather. Operating in a common field, BRIGAID team and K-Force team from Albania have been collaborating since the beginning of the lifetime of both projects, by sharing ideas, and participating in respective project events.
A series of meeting for the purposes of Inter-project coaching were held at the University of Tirana, Faculty of Economics, Room NBG, during the first and second semester of 2019 academic year. In February 2019, K-Force team and BRIGAID team presented project results and highlighted the projects objectives and how they would be achieved in an exclusive workshop on Inter-project coaching. In this meeting the opportunities of cooperation within both projects, as well as capacity development regarding the research for disaster resilience and adaptation to climate change, were discussed. The meetings were moderated by Elona Pojani and Perseta Grabova from the K-Force team from the University of Tirana, and Gerardo Anzaldua and Nensi Lalaj from the BRIGAID project team. The meetings were announced through the Faculty of Economy, University of Tirana webpage:
http://feut.edu.al/about/news/single-news.html?5c68119f82499d6e35ddcf20
The objective was to exchange experiences and methodologies related to the implementation of EU funded projects in the field of Disaster Risk Management and Resilience in Albania.
The main activities and products of inter-project coaching component consisted in:
- Gathering and sharing information about Erasmus+ K-Force Project and H2020 BRIGAID Project and Establishing communication and cooperation channels with the members of teams from both projects.
- Identifying relevant good practices and expertise in the field of Disaster Risk Management - The collection of information about BRIGAID project was followed by the identification of possible areas of cooperation with a focus on exchanging knowledge and good practices in the field of Disaster Resilience. The main purpose of BRIGAID was to develop business cases and identify opportunities for the uptake of innovative climate adaptation innovations. The innovations developed under the framework of BRIGAID project not only in Albania but also in other partner countries of the project were presented to the K-Force team and to the students of Master of Science in Risk Management. The BRIGAID Climate Innovation Window is a marketplace where Researchers and Entrepreneurs can showcase their innovations.
- Organizing seminars on Strategic analysis of the macro- and microenvironment for innovative solutions to climate change adaptation. This two-part seminar was conducted under the courses titled “Foundations of Risk Assessment and Decision Making” and “Disaster Risk Management”, planned for the first and second semesters of the Master of Science in Risk Management program. In Part I of the seminar introduced the PESTEL analysis methodology. The methodology is applied for the examination of political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal conditions in designated or high risk regions of interest (hotspots). This work was framed by the most recent assessments on climate change and disaster risk for the country of Albania. In Part II of the seminar, the contextual landscape illustrated by the results of the PESTEL analysis was combined with a stocktaking activity where potential solutions to the local challenges were identified. This activity laid the groundwork for the strategic planning of the student team. The strategic planning involved activities like the definition and segmentation of the main target audiences for the innovation projects, the estimation of a market size and growth rate for the solution(s) generated therein, the analysis of competitors, and the examination of the project’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis).
- Engaging Master students with research and research-related activities that enriched their learning experience and enhanced their employability prospects. The students were encouraged to creatively develop and design their own research ideas in collaboration with an academic supervisor from K-Force Project team in Albania and external partners from BRIGAID Team in Albania. The exchange of know-how and expertise enriched students’ skills in strategic analysis in case of disasters. Four reports that included Pestel Analysis, Disaster Risk Assessment for each of the hotspots, Contingency plan and Financial plan were produced at the end of the second semester by the student team in collaboration with the team of BRIGAID. Some of the reports were shared with the targeted audience in the K-Force Symposium organized in September 2019 in Albania.
Foundations of Risk Assessment and Decision Making
